Bioelectricity from Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast through low-cost microbial fuel cells

Abstract

In this research was used the yeast Sacharomyces cerevisiae as a fuel in microbial fuel cells using Zn-Zn and Zn-Cu electrodes, in order to study which of these two systems produced greater bioelectricity. The yeast Sacharomyces cerevisiae media (API 20 C AUX) was successfully identified (86%). The microbial fuel cell with Zn-Cu electrodes managed to generate higher voltage than the cells with Zn-Zn electrodes, the maximum voltage generation peak being 0.761 and 0.0089 V respectively. Both cells showed slightly acidic and neutral pH during monitoring. The maximum power density values and current density shown by the Zn-Cu cell was 8,196 mW/cm2 to 8,383 mA/cm2 respectively, on the other hand, the Zn-Zn cell was able to generate 0.5684 mW/cm2 to 0.238 mA/cm2 of the density of power and current density. This research work gives a new way of producing bioelectricity using low cost microbial fuel cell using as a fuel a yeast widely used in the beer industry.