Team:UTArlingtonTexasUSA/Hardware
HARDWARE
In order to facilitate our project, our team has designed a special stacked shape microbial fuel cell. The fuel cell is made out of acrylic glass and was specially cut and engraved for our use. The cell is made out of a series of six connected and sealed glass plates that contains two chambers for the anode and cathode. The glass plates used were cut as flat squares that were made using a water-tight sealant as to contain the cells inserted. In addition, the two chambers were connected using an original 3-D printed salt bridge made out of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. The square outlined salt bridge uses a hexagon pattern on the sides to allow the bridge to be filled up with an agar solution to be used as a permeable membrane to which the anode and cathode can contact. Finally the electrodes used in the device were carbon cloth pieces and connected to an Arduino to measure the potential across the microbial fuel cell created by the mediators in the solution. Our intent is to contribute a low-cost BTEX pollutant measurement device with the expectations to expand device capabilities in our time after iGEM.
