Electroosmotically generated disinfectant from urine as a by-product of electricity in microbial fuel cell for the inactivation of pathogenic species

Gajda, Iwona; Obata, Oluwatosin; Greenman, John; Ieropoulos, Ioannis A.

Abstract

This work presents a small scale and low cost ceramic based microbial fuel cell, utilising human urine into electricity, while producing clean catholyte into an initially empty cathode chamber through the process of electro-osmostic drag. It is the first time that the catholyte obtained as a by-product of electricity generation from urine was transparent in colour and reached pH>13 with high ionic conductivity values. The catholyte was collected and used ex situ as a killing agent for the inactivation of a pathogenic species such as Salmonella typhimurium, using a luminometer assay. Results showed that the catholyte solutions were efficacious in the inactivation of the pathogen organism even when diluted up to 1:10, resulting in more than 5 log-fold reduction in 4 min. Long-term impact of the catholyte on the pathogen killing was evaluated by plating Salmonella typhimurium on agar plates and showed that the catholyte possesses a long-term killing efficacy and continued to inhibit pathogen growth for 10 days.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 14, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Publication Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Deposit Date: Mar 28, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 1, 2020
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Research (part of Springer Nature)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Article Number: 5533
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60626-x
• Keywords: Multidisciplinary
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5820424
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60626-x