Transcriptomic analysis of Escherichia coli cells in microbial fuel cells

• Main Author: Zhang, Xinhua
• Other Authors: Li Changming
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Chemical engineering::Biotechnological production
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/16462
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As we all know that microorganisms can produce fuels, such as ethanol, methane and hydrogen via organic matter. It is less well known that microorganisms can also convert organic matter into electricity in devices known as microbial fuel cells (MFC). Nowadays, people have an increasing interest in microbial fuel cells. Microbial fuel cells offer the possibility of harvesting electricity from organic waste and renewable biomass. Due to their ‘carbon-neutral’ characteristics, they become attractive source of energy; the oxidation of the organic matter only releases recently fixed carbon back into the atmosphere. In my FYP experiment, we found that mediatorless MFC with a kind of mutant E. coli can conduct electricity. In order to study the mechanism of this process, enzymes should be studied and compared with the normal E. coli. In our experiment we used 1-D and 2-D electrophoresis, electrochemical methods and gene analysis to analyze the two kinds of E. coli.