Operational Assessment of a Sediment Microbial Fuel Cell Power
Source for Navy-Relevant Sensor Technologies
The objective of this project is to determine whether prototype
microbial fuel cells can successfully power Navy hydrophones
in the shallow marine environment. Performance of two basic
microbial fuel cell designs powering nodes of a hydrophone array
will be tested. One type of fuel cell taps the voltage gradient
across the marine sediment water interface, maintained by microbial
oxidation of organics at an anode in the sediment and reduction
of dissolved oxygen at a cathode in the overlying water. The
other fuel cell type taps the voltage gradient between microbial
oxidation in the sediment at the anode and reduction of manganese
oxide, microbially maintained on a metal cathode surface. The
hydrophone array is deployed to track
acoustically-tagged green sea turtles in San Diego Bay.
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Microbial fuel
cell test deployment in San Diego Bay. |
Capabilties:
- Pier facilities
- Diver support services
- Ocean engineering expertise
- Acoustic tracking systems
- Autonomous monitoring and surveillance systems
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