All Outputs (98)

Microbial fuel cells for robotics: Energy autonomy through artificial symbiosis (2012)
Journal Article

The development of the microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology has seen an enormous growth over the last hundred years since its inception by Potter in 1911. The technology has reached a level of maturity that it is now considered to be a field in its o... Read More about Microbial fuel cells for robotics: Energy autonomy through artificial symbiosis.

Urine as a suitable fuel for microbial fuel cells (2011)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

MFCs show promise in utilising a wide variety of organic sources. This paper describes the utilisation of neat urine as the main feedstock, with conversion efficiencies of >50%. Power densities of 4.93mW/m2 were recorded when 48 small-scale MFCs were... Read More about Urine as a suitable fuel for microbial fuel cells.

Investigating the effects of fluidic connection between microbial fuel cells (2011)
Journal Article

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can 'treat' wastewater but individually are thermodynamically restricted. Scale-up might, therefore, require a plurality of units operating in a stack which could introduce losses simply through fluidic connections. Experi... Read More about Investigating the effects of fluidic connection between microbial fuel cells.

The overshoot phenomenon as a function of internal resistance in microbial fuel cells (2011)
Journal Article

A method for assessing the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is the polarisation sweep where different external resistances are applied at set intervals (sample rates). The resulting power curves often exhibit an overshoot where both power a... Read More about The overshoot phenomenon as a function of internal resistance in microbial fuel cells.

Small scale microbial fuel cells and different ways of reporting output (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

The present study, reports on the findings of connecting 2 stacks of 48 MFCs and the importance of maturity and acclimation for the anodic biofilms. Furthermore, an attempt is made to emphasize the importance of a universal unit for quantifying power... Read More about Small scale microbial fuel cells and different ways of reporting output.

MFCs and algae (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Algae and photosynthetic bacteria may be integrated or associated with Microbial Fuel Cells MFCs in a number of different ways including: (1) use of whole (intact) or lipid-extracted lyzed cells as the primary carbon-energy source for anodic microbia... Read More about MFCs and algae.

Microbial fuel cell driven behavioral dynamics in robot simulations (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

With the present study we report the first application of a recently proposed model for realistic microbial fuel cells (MFCs) energy generation dynamics, suitable for robotic simulations with minimal and extremely limited computational overhead. A si... Read More about Microbial fuel cell driven behavioral dynamics in robot simulations.

Grounding motivation in energy autonomy: A study of artificial metabolism constrained robot dynamics (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

We present an evolutionary robotics investigation into the metabolism constrained homeostatic dynamics of a simulated robot. Unlike existing research that has focused on either energy or motivation autonomy the robot described here is considered in t... Read More about Grounding motivation in energy autonomy: A study of artificial metabolism constrained robot dynamics.

EcoBot-III: A robot with guts (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper describes the work carried out to develop EcoBot- III, which is a robot with an artificial digestion system. The robot is powered by Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) and it is designed to collect food and water from the environment, digest the... Read More about EcoBot-III: A robot with guts.

Effects of flow-rate, inoculum and time on the internal resistance of microbial fuel cells (2010)
Journal Article

To process large volumes of wastewater, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) would require anodophilic bacteria preferably operating at high flow-rates. The effect of flow-rate on different microbial consortia was examined during anodic biofilm development, u... Read More about Effects of flow-rate, inoculum and time on the internal resistance of microbial fuel cells.

Improved energy output levels from small-scale Microbial Fuel Cells (2010)
Journal Article

This study reports on the findings from the investigation into small-scale (6.25mL) MFCs, connected together as a network of multiple units. The MFCs contained unmodified (no catalyst) carbon fibre electrodes and for initial and later experiments, a... Read More about Improved energy output levels from small-scale Microbial Fuel Cells.

Peripherals of BES from processing current to data transmission (2009)
Book Chapter

Artificial life models in hardware (2009)
Book

Hopping, climbing and swimming robots, nano-size neural networks, motorless walkers, slime mould and chemical brains - 'Artificial Life Models in Hardware' offers unique designs and prototypes of life-like creatures in conventional hardware and hybri... Read More about Artificial life models in hardware.

Landfill leachate treatment with microbial fuel cells; scale-up through plurality (2009)
Journal Article

Three Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) were fluidically connected in series, with a single feed-line going into the 1st column through the 2nd column and finally as a single outflow coming from the 3rd column. Provision was also made for re-circulation in... Read More about Landfill leachate treatment with microbial fuel cells; scale-up through plurality.

Biological computing using perfusion anodophile biofilm electrodes (PABE) (2008)
Journal Article

This paper presents a theoretical approach to biological computing, using biofilm electrodes by illustrating a simplified Pavlovian learning model. The theory behind this approach was based on empirical data produced from a prototype version of these... Read More about Biological computing using perfusion anodophile biofilm electrodes (PABE).

Microbial fuel cells based on carbon veil electrodes: Stack configuration and scalability (2008)
Journal Article

The aim of this study was to compare the performance of three different sizes of microbial fuel cell (MFC) when operated under continuous flow conditions using acetate as the fuel substrate and show how small-scale multiple units may be best configur... Read More about Microbial fuel cells based on carbon veil electrodes: Stack configuration and scalability.

Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought (2006)
Journal Article

This paper reports on the robot EcoBot-II, which is designed to power itself solely by converting unrefined insect biomass into useful energy using on-board microbial fuel cells with oxygen cathodes. In bench experiments different 'fuels' (sugar, fru... Read More about Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought.

EcoBot-II: An artificial agent with a natural metabolism (2005)
Journal Article

In this paper we report the development of the robot EcoBot-II, which exhibits a primitive form of artificial symbiosis. Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) were used as the onboard energy supply, which consisted of bacterial cultures from sewage sludge and... Read More about EcoBot-II: An artificial agent with a natural metabolism.