Autonomous Sensor Node Powered by CM-Scale Benthic Microbial Fuel Cell and Low-Cost and Off-the-Shelf Components

Overview & Synopsis

Microbial fuel cells (MFC's) are promising energy harvesters to constantly supply energy to sensors deployed in aquatic environments where solar, thermal and vibration sources are inadequate. In order to show the ready-to-use MFC potential as energy scavengers, this paper presents the association of a durable benthic MFC with a few dollars of commercially-available power management units (PMU's) dedicated to other kinds of harvesters. With 20cm 2 of cheap material electrodes, and experimental conditions similar to real ones, 101µW has been generated at 320mV in steady-state operation. In burst mode, the MFC can generate up to 400µW. The PMU, configured to extract the maximum available energy, provides 47µW at 3V in steady state, which would allow a wide range of environmental sensors to be powered. A sensor node, consuming 100µJ every 4s for measurement and wireless transmission of temperature, has been successfully powered by the association of our MFC and the PMU.