Electricity generation by Pseudomonas putida B6-2 in microbial fuel cells using carboxylates and carbohydrate as substrates

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) employing Pseudomonas putida B6-2 (ATCC BAA-2545) as an exoelectrogen have been developed to harness energy from various conventional substrates, such as acetate, lactate, glucose, and fructose. Owing to its metabolic versatility, P. putida B6-2 demonstrates adaptable growth rates on diverse, cost-effective carbon sources within MFCs, exhibiting distinct energy production characteristics. Notably, the anode chamber's pH rises with carboxylates' (acetate and lactate) consumption and decreases with carbohydrates' (glucose and fructose) utilization. The MFC utilizing fructose as a substrate achieved the highest power density at 411 mW m⁻². Initial analysis revealed that P. putida B6-2 forms biofilms covered with nanowires, contributing to bioelectricity generation. These microbial nanowires are likely key players in direct extracellular electron transport through physical contact. This study established a robust foundation for producing valuable compounds and bioenergy from common substrates in bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) utilizing P. putida as an exoelectrogen.

Keywords

Microbial fuel cell / Pseudomonas putida B6-2 / Multi-substrate biodegradation / Power generation / Extracellular electron transfer

Data Availability Statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary Materials files).

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement

Xiaoyan Qi: Writing - original draft, Validation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Huangwei Cai: Software, Writing - review & editing. Xiaolei Wang: Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis. Ruijun Liu: Investigation, Formal analysis. Ting Cai: Investigation, Formal analysis. Sen Wang: Visualization. Xueying Liu: Writing - review & editing. Xia Wang: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070097 and 91951202), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0904800).

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