Construction of the microbial fuel cell-based self-powered biosensor

Microbial fuel cells are popular electrochemical devices for biosensor applications due to their easy transportation and on-site monitoring capabilities. These devices can generate electrical energy from organic or inorganic substances. In this study, since it is known that yeast fungi, an example of an easily accessible microorganism in daily life, can operate biologically in water and sugar media, the principle that media containing these materials can generate electrical energy in MYCs by allowing the decomposition of organic substances was adopted. In this study, microbial fuel cells prepared by adding sucrose, yeast fungus and sucrose-yeast fungus into distilled water were named MYH-1, MYH-2 and MYH-3, respectively. These microbial fuel cells were tested by open circuit voltage and linear scanning voltammetry techniques under two-electrode electrochemical cell and three-electrode electrochemical cell configurations. The results showed that the power density generated by the MYH-3 samples under the three-electrode electrochemical cell configuration was as high as 4250 mW/m2. This power density is the highest power density value produced in this study. After MYH-3 samples were connected in series and 10 V open circuit voltage was obtained, DC/DC converters with UC3843 and BQ 25570 integrated controller chips were designed and their use in biosensor applications was investigated. According to the results of the research, a self-powered biosensor that can instantaneously monitor the electrochemical activity of yeast fungus microorganism in MYH-3 samples was successfully designed with the DC/DC converter with UC 3843 integrated controller chip. It is concluded that MYH-3 samples offer great potential to be used more effectively as conventional power supplies, information processing units, actuators and sensors.