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Living Battery Discovered in North Sea

posted by n1 on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the wave-power-will-be-jealous dept.

Koen writes:

A team of the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel have discovered a microbial battery in the North Sea off the Coast at Oostende. "By producing electricity, these bacteria extract energy from the sea floor," says prof. Filip Meysman. "It is the first time that such a biological battery has been found in nature. Perhaps, in ten years, a smart phone will be powered by tiny conductive bacterial wires." These bacteria seem to be common all over the world.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by CoolHand on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:02PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:02PM (#24941)

    Don't our bodies produce electricity? I seem to remember from science class that there are electicrical signals passed through our bodies. That is what brain monitors that use "electrodes" planted on the head monitor. Ergo, musn't our bodies chemically convert foodstuff into electricity?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:10AM (#25369)

    Very true, but is again a scale thing. These bacteria don't use electrical signals within their cells, the filament made of thousands of different bacteria cells, harvests electrons deep within the sediment and conducts these electrons all the way to the top.

    When our body converts stuff it is based on the same principle, where the goal is to as much electrons as possible from a foodsource. To gain the most energy (simply said), electrons are stripped from the source (one half-reaction) and then those electrons are "dumped" on oxygen. But this process happens in one cell of the human body. The bacteria strip the electrons deep within the sediment (where a lot of food source is available, but no oxygen is available) and then bring them all the way up to the oxygen to gain the most energy.

    Or that's how I understand the article ;-)