Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hey, I am making a microbial fuel cell for my school science project. I am planning on making two of them, one with the kit from Home Science Tools and one from scratch. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with this project as I am fairly new. Is it possible for me to charge a device like a phone even if its just a tiny bit? I just want the charging symbol to pop up on my phone when I connect it if that's even possible. I read through the articles on this website to see but I'm not quite sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time!

Hi - the Home Science Tools kit only generates enough power to intermittently blink a small LED, which is not enough to charge a phone. It is theoretically possible to build your own much larger microbial fuel cell to charge a phone but it would need to be very big, and it would require additional electronics to properly charge the phone (you can't just plug a phone charging cable directly into the MFC). This video is about potato batteries, not microbial fuel cells, but it will help you get a better idea of how much power is required to charge a phone: https://youtu.be/q9X-ez31oiY?si=5ug1g9R-lbpruGby

Thanks for the info and that video! So would it be possible for me to power anything using the kit or even combine it with a couple I make myself? Would connecting it somehow to a battery for a while be enough to recharge that battery? I'm trying to be able to use the electricity generated to power something so my school project seems useful.

Thanks again for your help

Hi,

Even if you combine a few of these kits, it is not going to be enough to really power anything "useful." The kit is intended more as a proof of concept so you can understand how the science works. It cannot even power the LED continuously which is why the LED blinks - it takes a little bit for it to build up enough charge to blink the LED briefly.

If you want to try and power something "useful" - like powering one or more LEDs continuously to use as a night light - then you would need to build your own MFC that has much larger electrodes - more surface area will give you more power.

Hope that helps!