Use your weed to power your home!...harvest their electrons..

[Dreamwalker.]

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-plant-e-street-alive.html

http://plant-e.com/

"As plants grow, they produce more sugars than they need, and the excess is discharged back into surrounding soil and break down, releasing protons and electrons. Plant-e conducts electricity by placing electrodes into the soi...... electrons....harvested

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-01-plant-e-street-alive.html#jCp"

use your lawn to charge your electric car.....wonder if we could plug our cactus's in?

://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ku1-_MOzkTE

Edited February 21, 2015 by Dreamwalker.

[Dreamwalker.]

the only issue seems to be the size of the system....

15sq m will power a computor notebook...

~600watts per hour per ha

[ace1928]

Have you looked at microbial fuel cells before?
If not i suggest you do.

Its possible to pair up plants and the microbial cell idea to get a far more compact and productive system.
Cool idea

[teonanacatl]

Looks like this is using anaerobic and aerobic areas to produce electricity so the microbes would be vital to this system.

I wonder how long it would take to poison the electrodes?

Edited January 17, 2015 by teonanacatl

[Dreamwalker.]

"how long it would take to poison the electrodes?"

so do you think the electrodes would need regular replacement?

What might poison them?

Edited January 17, 2015 by Dreamwalker.

[teonanacatl]

Yeah for sure the electrodes will get poisoned- see below.

So the simplest way to look at creating energy is to devise a system where there is a gradient of something, if there is a gradient the one can create energy and one can then convert between different types of energy. Eg lots of water no water- hydroelectric, electrochemical gradient- battery, pressure gradient- engine, even people moving too and from work could be used to make power.

I think this one is working on high and low oxygen content and providing a loop back. Oxidation happens at the anode and in this case the electrode captures the e- produced during oxidation of the organic matter or sugars produced from the plant. In a normal anaerobic system these electrons would go to S for example producing the typical smell of anaerobic conditions. The electrons then go to the cathode where they reduce O2 to produce H2O so O2 is the receiver of electrons no S.

The electrodes will get poisoned as species being oxidised at the anode will not just be sugars. Transition metals and organic compounds containing P, S, N and O can all be oxidised. Likewise at the cathode it wont just be O2 that is reduced in fact a lot of other species will be reduced before O2, for example all the transition metals. This results in deposits on the electrodes that decrease its ability to work.

[ElectricFertilizer]

Fascinating info here... While I'm already somewhat familiar with Microbial Fuel Cells, I've never heard of electrode poisoning before, aside from basic anodic oxidation.

In my line of work involving the opposite effect, using electricity to improve crop growth, this is also a concern.

Nonetheless, to add to the conversation, I wonder if anyone has noticed whether plants grown in these MFC environments tend to grow better then their counterparts. I imagine that by the presence of an electric field between the electrodes that changes in growth characteristics occur.