MFC (2020)

Background

The Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) was inspired by NASA Micro-12 studying MFCs for the purpose of wastewater treatment and electricity production. The purpose of our MFC payload is to determine the effects of rocket launch and flight on the performance and health of the MFC.

The first iteration of MFC was designed to to use wild-type Shewanella oneidensis bacteria in a LB broth with platinum electrodes. The bacteria were sourced from Adam Deutschbauer's Lab at LBL. However, due to the difficulty of the project and a fungal infection that wiped out the bacterial culture, we decided to pivot to a more robust and simpler design.

The second iteration of the MFC was designed to use electrogenic soil bacteria from locally sourced soil, mixed with distilled water with graphite electrodes. The maintenance of this iteration of the MFC was much easier and a control MFC of this design was manufactured to gather voltage data over the course of 2 weeks.