Water quality monitoring in developing countries; can microbial fuel cells be the answer?

Jon Chouler, Mirella Di Lorenzo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

121 Citations (SciVal)
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Abstract

The provision of safe water and adequate sanitation to developing countries is a must. A range of chemical and biological methods are currently used to ensure the safety of water for consumption. These methods however suffer from high costs, complexity of use and inability to function onsite and in real time. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology has great potential for the rapid and simple testing of the quality of water sources. MFCs have the advantages of high simplicity and possibility for onsite and real time monitoring. Depending on the choice of the manufacturing materials, this technology can also be highly cost effective. This review covers the state-of-the-art research on MFC sensors for water quality monitoring, and explores enabling factors for their use in developing countries.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)450-470
Number of pages21
JournalBiosensors
Volume5
Issue number3
Early online date16 Jul 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2015

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