Research and scale-up of a microbial fuel cell for renewable energy storage

利用可再生一次能源，特别是风能和太阳能，最有可能解决目前世界范围内，更具体地说在加拿大的发电所面临的环境和长期燃料供应问题。不幸的是，风能和太阳能发电技术都有一个显著的缺点--间歇性，这往往是不可预测的。如果没有有效的能源平滑或储存，可再生能源的广泛使用就不可能可行。最近，有人说“储电真的是可再生能源的圣杯”。目前，还没有成熟的、低成本的、广泛适用的储能技术。在正在开发的不同存储技术中，基于氢的存储似乎前景广阔。氢能存储的关键要素之一是氢能到电能的转换。这项提议的PI与学生和研究人员合作开发了一种独特的氢气再通电技术，名为生物发电机，并获得了UWO的全球专利。这项建议的总体目标是：(1)通过研究生物动力学、流体动力学、传质和电化学等基本性质，显著改善生物发电机的技术特性；(2)通过扩大规模、成本分析和系统集成，努力实现生物发电机的商业化。

The use of renewable primary energy sources, particularly wind and solar, possesses the greatest potential for solving both the environmental and long-term fuel availability problems of current electrical power generation world-wide, and more specifically, in Canada. Unfortunately, both wind and solar power generation technologies share one significant drawback - intermittency, which is often unpredictable. Without effective smoothing or storage of energy, the widespread use of renewables cannot be viable. Recently, it was stated that "electricity storage really is the Holy Grail" of renewable power. Currently, there is no well-established, cost-efficient and widely applicable energy storage technology. Among the different storage technologies under development, it appears that hydrogen-based storage holds a great promise. One of the key elements in hydrogen energy storage is the conversion of hydrogen to electricity. A unique hydrogen re-electrification technology, named BioGenerator, was developed by the PI of this proposal in collaboration with students and researchers and was patented worldwide by the UWO. The general objectives of this proposal are: (1) to improve significantly the technical characteristics of the BioGenerator by studying its fundamental properties, including the biokinetics, hydrodynamics, mass transfer and electrochemistry; and (2) to work towards commercialization of the BioGenerator by performing scale-up, cost analysis and system integration.