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The researchers found that the bacteria that are part of the human intestinal microbiome have the ability to produce electricity, using techniques different from those of known electrogenic bacteria.
Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have discovered that Listeria monocytogenes and hundreds of other bacterial species produce electricity, a discovery that could produce live batteries from microbes.
"The fact that so many bugs that interact with humans, whether as pathogens or probiotics or in our microbiota or involved in the fermentation of human products, are electrogenic – this had been forgotten before," said Dan Portnoy, professor of molecular medicine and cell biology and plant and microbial biology, said in a statement. "That could tell us a lot about how these bacteria infect us or help us have a healthy gut."
The bacteria generate electricity to eliminate the electrons produced during the metabolism and promote the production of energy. While animals and plants transfer their electrons into oxygen inside mitochondria from each cell, bacteria must find another electron acceptor in oxygen – free environments, such as tanks. intestinal, alcoholic and cheese fermentation and acid mines. In geological environments, it was often a mineral – iron or manganese, for example – outside the cell. In a sense, these bacteria "breathe" iron or manganese.
The transfer of electrons out of the cell to a mineral requires a cascade of special chemical reactions called extracellular electron transfer chain that will transport the electrons in the form of a small electrical current. Some researchers have used the chain to develop a battery by sticking an electrode in a vial of bacteria to generate electricity.
However, the new extracellular electron transfer system is only used by bacteria when necessary, including when oxygen levels are low and has only been detected at home. single cell wall bacteria living in a flavin rich environment.
"It seems that the cellular structure of these bacteria and the vitamin-rich ecological niche they occupy make electron transfer from the cell much easier and more cost effective," said first author, Sam Light, a trainee. postdoctoral. . "Thus, we believe that classically studied mineral breathing bacteria use extracellular electron transfer because they are crucial for survival, whereas these newly identified bacteria use it because they are" easy ".
The researchers then explored the interactions between living microbes and inorganic materials for potential applications in carbon capture and sequestration and bio-solar energy production. Biogenetic technologies could produce electricity from bacteria in waste treatment plants.
They used an electrode to measure the electrical current flowing from the bacteria (up to 500 microamperes) to confirm that the bacteria is electrogenic.
The study was published in Nature.
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