Experimental characterization of the electrical energy produced by microbial fuel cells supplied by pot plants

Progress towards green and autonomous energy sources includes exploiting living systems and biological tissue for harvesting electrical energy. Plant-microbial fuel cells (P-MFCs) have recently been identified as a promising energy source for continuously and indefinitely supplying autonomous electronic devices, such as, for example, sensor nodes. This paper reports the results of the characterization of microbial fuel cells supplied by pot plants in terms of harvestable electrical energy. The results show that electronic devices with a power consumption lower than 1mW can be easily operated continuously with the energy produced by P-MFCs. As test cases, P-MFCs have been used to power LEDs as well as a temperature and relative humidity sensor.