Abstract
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are emerging as a promising alternative renewable energy source, especially for remote monitoring applications. Due to its low voltage and power output, MFCs are unable to directly drive most commercial electronic devices. A power management system (PMS) is needed to accumulate MFC energy first and then drive the load intermittently. In this study, a transformer-based PMS is proposed, which is able to function under a lower voltage input than other available MFC PMS designs. Two super-capacitors are included in the proposed PMS. The first is analytically optimized to maximize the average harvested power, while the second is selected based on the energy required to drive a given load. A continuous-mode MFC was built and used to successfully drive an IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor system using the proposed PMS. Experimental results showed that the proposed PMS worked well under a very low input voltage (0.18 V). The configuration of two super-capacitors and a transformer in this transformer-based PMS provides more flexibility in harvesting power from MFCs.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 86-92 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Power Sources |
| Volume | 205 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Changxue Xu, Wenxuan Chai, and Jianing Dai of Clemson University for their experimental support, Dr. David Freedman of Clemson University for technical advice, and Angela Allen of the Greenville Wastewater Treatment Plant for wasterwater use. D. Zhang acknowledges the support of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (K50511040010).
Keywords
- Microbial fuel cell
- Optimization
- Power management system
- Super-capacitor
- Wireless sensor
