2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Development of advanced coating array technology and trial production of high-performance electrodes by elucidating the adhesion mechanism of methanogen

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	20K20315
Project/Area Number (Other)	17H06296 (2017-2019)
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund (2020) Single-year Grants (2017-2019)
Research Field	Environmental conservation measure and related fields
Research Institution	Tohoku University
Principal Investigator	Tada Chika 東北大学, 農学研究科, 准教授 (30413892)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	関口貴子国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 材料・化学領域, 主任研究員 (50738086) 高橋英志東北大学, 環境科学研究科, 教授 (90312652)
Project Period (FY)	2017-06-30 – 2021-03-31
Keywords	メタン菌 / カソード電極 / プリンタ / CNT / 分散 / 付着
Outline of Final Research Achievements	With the goal of establishing "microorganism printer" that artificially and freely aligns and attaches methanogens to the electrode surface, (1) elucidation of the adhesion mechanism of methanogens, and (2) dispersion of highly attached CNT of methanogens (3) Accumulation methanogen on the electrode for a short time , and manufacture high-performance electrodes. As a result, (1) Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus had a good adhesion to that COOH and OH groups on the electrode surface at a ratio of 1: 0.65, and (2) had a high affinity with single-layer supergrowth CNTs. In addition, BSA 0.5 mg / L was suitable as the CNT dispersion. (3) At -600 mV (vs. Ag/AgCl), methanogen adhered to 107 copies/electrode in 2 days. A 7.5-fold higher current density was obtained by microbial fuel cell which methanogen adhered twice as densely. As for the electrode orientation, the same methane conversion rate was obtained even with 1/10 of methanogen as compared with the non-alignment.
Free Research Field	環境微生物学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	本研究により、メタン菌をカソード電極とした高性能な微生物燃料電池の作製が可能になるための基礎データを得ることができた。これにより、これまで、白金などのレアメタルが必要だった、触媒反応が、メタン菌のような、どこでも手に入り、安価な材料として利用可能になること、また、CO2を有効なエネルギーガスのCH4に変換しながら、電力を得る新たな微生物燃料電池技術の基礎技術ができ、今後、その応用に向けての足掛かりを得た。