{"id":64956,"date":"2009-09-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-students-build-microbial-fuel-cell-to-generate-electricity-reuse-waste-from-biodiesel-process\/"},"modified":"2009-09-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-14T00:00:00","slug":"uri-students-build-microbial-fuel-cell-to-generate-electricity-reuse-waste-from-biodiesel-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2009\/09\/uri-students-build-microbial-fuel-cell-to-generate-electricity-reuse-waste-from-biodiesel-process\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 students build microbial fuel cell to generate electricity, reuse waste from biodiesel process"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 14, 2009 \u2013 Two 溏心vlog免费B站 students spent the summer building a unique fuel cell that uses bacteria and the waste stream from the production of biodiesel to generate renewable energy.<\/p>\n


\n\tChemical engineering students Sarah Hanselman of Bangor, Maine, and Patricia Coutts of Hyde Park, N.Y., collaborated with Professor Stanley Barnett to develop this new form of green energy.<\/p>\n


\nAccording to the students, there is a growing need to convert the waste stream from the process of making biodiesel \u2013 90 percent of which is glycerol \u2013 into other valuable products. So they built a small fuel cell using the biodiesel waste products as the fuel. When they added bacteria to the biodiesel waste, the microorganism oxidized the fuel through an electrode to generate electricity.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIn addition to making electricity, we hope that the fuel cell will convert the glycerol into other potentially valuable chemical products that can be used in all sorts of chemical processes and consumer products like shampoo and make-up,\u201d said Hanselman. \u201cIf it can work on a larger scale, this could be a win-win situation \u2013 it gets rid of biodiesel waste and we get electricity out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe first microbial fuel cell the students built was not efficient enough to generate useful quantities of electricity. They are continuing to make refinements to the design and materials to decrease internal resistance and increase voltage.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe\u2019re also exploring using different types of electrodes and different alloys of metals to see which might help us get more voltage,\u201d Coutts said.

\nThe students hope that their fuel cell will eventually generate enough electricity to power a small fan or other household appliance.<\/p>\n


\nBarnett, the students\u2019 advisor, is encouraging the students to pursue other research projects to develop unique renewable energy sources as a means of reducing the use of fossil fuels. One such project involves extracting a naturally produced oil from algae.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll be able to use that oil in a fuel cell,\u201d Coutts said. \u201cIt would be awesome if a household could grow their own algae, put it in a fuel cell and get energy to power their appliances. Algae grows fast, it can be grown in ponds almost anywhere, and it would get us away from the costly biodiesel production and separation process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coutts and Hanselman are both enrolled in the 溏心vlog免费B站 International Engineering Program and will be spending part of the next year studying and working abroad. Coutts will study at the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, followed \u2013 she hopes \u2013 by an internship at Schott AG, a glass and ceramics manufacturer in Mainz, Germany. Hanselman will take classes at the Technical University of Compiegne in France and intern for an as-yet undetermined company.<\/p>\n


\nBoth students expect to follow up their 溏心vlog免费B站 education with graduate school, though they are leaving their options open to whatever other opportunities may arise from their research or their time abroad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 14, 2009 \u2013 Two 溏心vlog免费B站 students spent the summer building a unique fuel cell that uses bacteria and the waste stream from the production of biodiesel to generate renewable energy. Chemical engineering students Sarah Hanselman of Bangor, Maine, and Patricia Coutts of Hyde Park, N.Y., collaborated with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}