Energy generating biotech shown to kill pathogens

In 2011 a team of researchers at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) announced the viability of urine as a fuel for microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The same process, in which wastewater flows through a series of cells filled with electroactive microbes, can now be used to destroy Salmonella.

According to UWE Bristol, the MFC technology could one day be used in the developing world in areas lacking sanitation and installed in homes in the developed world to help clean waste before it flows into the municipal sewerage network, reducing the burden on water companies to treat effluent.

Lead researcher Prof Ioannis Ieropoulos said it was necessary to establish the technology could tackle pathogens in order for it to be considered for use in the developing world.

The findings of the research have been published in PLOS ONE. Prof Ieropoulos, director of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre, based in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at UWE Bristol, said it was the first time globally it had been reported that pathogens could be destroyed using this method.