The Institute of Microbiology has created bionic marine batteries

On September 24, the international academic journal Nature Communications reported on the miniaturized bionic marine cells created by researchers at the Institute of Microbiology, making new progress in the field of biophotovoltaics
.

Inspired by the marine microbial ecosystem as a natural solar biotransformation system, the study designed and constructed a four-bacterial microbiome composed of primary producers (cyanobacteria), primary decomposers (E.
coli) and end consumers (Shiva and Geobacteria), based on its basic characteristics consisting of primary producers, primary decomposers and end consumers, and demonstrated that the four-bacteria microbiome is optimal in terms of internal resistance, maximum power density and stability.
It is explained that maintaining a complete three-level ecological structure can achieve efficient biophotoelectric transformation
.

Further, in view of the contradiction between cyanobacterial photosynthetic oxygen release and anaerobic power production of heterotrophic microorganisms, the researchers blocked the aerobic respiration pathway of E.
coli and Shiva bacteria, and developed a conductive hydrogel with oxygen isolation performance, encapsulating Escherichia coli, Shiva bacteria and Dierba to form an artificial deposition layer
that can isolate oxygen and can carry out electron transport.
The artificial sedimentary layer is assembled with the water column layer containing cyanobacteria to create an integrated biosolar cell that can directly convert light energy into electrical energy and operate stably for more than 1 month (Figure 1).

This biosolar cell simulates the basic physical structure and ecological structure of a marine battery, but the spatio-temporal scale is significantly compressed and can be considered a miniaturized bionic marine cell (Figure 2
).
Bionic marine cells not only raise the efficiency of biophotovoltaics to a new level, provide a new path for the development of efficient and stable biosolar cells, but also further demonstrate the biotechnological potential
of synthetic ecology.

The study was titled "A miniaturized bionic ocean-battery mimicking the structure of marine microbial ecosystems", with Zhu Huawei, postdoctoral fellow of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Li Yin and Zhang Yanping of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang Xueli and Zhu Zhiguang of the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Lu Xuefeng, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Process Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, as co-corresponding authors
.
The research has been funded
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Special Cultivation Project of Class B Pilot Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Key Deployment Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Cooperation Fund of the Clean Energy Innovation Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Postdoctoral Innovation Talent Support Program.

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