New microbial fuel cell power system for efficiency improvement

This paper presents a power management system for energy harvesting with multiple microbial fuel cells (MFCs), devices that can generate electricity in water environments using electro-chemical reactions caused by bacteria. The system first connects a capacitor to each MFC in parallel so that the capacitors are charged by the MFCs. Then the system disconnects the capacitors from the MFCs, connects all the capacitors in series, and connects all the series-connected capacitors to a boost converter. As a result, the boost converter receives sufficient voltage and energy from the capacitors and starts up, providing high enough voltage and current to the load. The system allows low voltage low current MFCs to be used to power high voltage high current electronic devices deployed in the water. The system was tested in the lab.