Engineering the interface between electroactive bacteria and electrodes

Chelsea Catania is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida. She was an NSF graduate research fellow and obtained her PhD in Materials Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests are in the modification of biotic-abiotic interfaces for microbial electrochemical technologies and human health. Amruta A. Karbelkar is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained her MS in Chemistry from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on developing electrochemical platforms to study microbial electron transfer and diagnostics for infectious diseases. Ariel L. Furst is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained her BS in Chemistry from the University of Chicago and her PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. She was then an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Her lab combines electrochemical methods with biomolecular and materials engineering to address challenges in human health and clean energy. [Display omitted] Microbial electrochemical technologies, which incorporate electroactive microorganisms, could enable a completely circular carbon economy. However, many of these technologies are limited by inefficient interactions between microbes and electrode surfaces. Here, we explore recent advances that enhance direct electron transfer across the abiotic-biotic interface in microbial fuel cells and microbial electrosynthesis systems. As our understanding of the effect of genetic engineering and materials incorporation strategies on the microbes improves, these technologies will advance toward economically feasible, commercial applications.