Image courtesy: Grubio, Wikipedia

Researchers generate electric current from the seaweed!

 Happy news from the Israel scientists! The Israeli researchers recently announced their successful technology development in the generation of electric current from the seaweed! With this development, the scientific human effort now adding another use of the marine resource. It is significant to note that this new technology is eco-friendly that the electric power generation or harvesting is possible through conserving the plants and not destroying them. The seaweed continues to remain there as the same like the solar power.

The new technology innovation is based on the already generated knowledge base that certain bacteria possess the ability to transfer electrons to electrochemical cells. This in turn produce electrical currents. Thus, the new finding is by extending this understanding in the seaweed, as the living organisms as the source of electrical currents, getting stored in Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC).

The research experiment was carried out in the Mediterranean shore, where different varieties of seaweed are present. Of these varieties, Ulva (‘sea-lettuce’) is abundantly available.

Image courtesy: ResearchGate

Image courtesy: Jerusalem Post

In comparisons with the previously used bacteria, cyanobacteria, the research team found that using the seaweed instead could produce 1000 times greater! It is near to the level of the current generated in the solar cells.

The seaweed, being a plant, does photosynthesis. In the case of seaweed, the team found that the rate of photosynthesis is comparatively higher. It is also found that these seaweeds provide current in the dark time too, because of respiration, at the rate of half of the level that we get during the day time. It is eco-friendly due to the reason that it doesn’t require any chemical. Thus, it is a clean energy revolution, as stated by Shlosberg, the inventor and the team member.

This idea of the possibility of using seaweed to harvest electric current got stuck in the thoughts of Yaniv Shlosberg, PhD Scholar, while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Now a consortium of researchers is formed in the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The consortium has already developed a prototype device. The team presented their findings, experiment, prototype, etc. in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics (The Jerusalem Post)