Comparative Microbial Fuel Cell Evaluations of Shewanella spp.

To date several different strains of Shewanella have been sequenced; however, many of these isolates have not been evaluated in microbial fuel cell (MFC) systems. Here we present a summary of power densities, current densities, cell attachment, and coulombic efficiencies for eight different Shewanella strains in two different MFC configurations. Our results show that different Shewanella strains have unique characteristics as MFC biocatalysts and that strain S. putrefaciens W3-18-1 significantly outperforms S. oneidensis MR-1. Further, these results suggest that Shewanella strain performance in MFCs is strongly impacted by system parameters such as buffer composition and ion exchange membrane selection.