A novel oxidizer-less and high performance microbial fuel cell by using DNA as a final electron acceptor in the cathodic chamber

Abstract A novel oxidizer-less and high performance microbial fuel cell (MFC) was developed using DNA modified carbon paste electrode (DNA/CPE) as a biocathode in the cathodic chamber. Applying bare CPE as the cathode, the output power of MFC differed when adding various oxidizers such as: permanganate (289.76 mW/m 2 at 621.87 mA/m 2 ), ferricyanide (111.94 mW/m 2 at 377.5 mA/m 2 ), and oxygen (41.77 mW/m 2 at 210.11 mA/m 2 ). While for DNA/CPE as biocathode, the maximum power and current density of MFC (510.13 mW/m 2 at 1200.01 mA/m 2 ) were the same in presence of various oxidizers. Furthermore, the type of oxidizer had also no effect on the performance of MFC. Finally, the effect of DNA sequence, composed of pure bases including only adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine sequences, on the output power of MFC was examined. The obtained results confirmed that the performance of biocathode remained independent from both the type of base and the quality of DNA.