International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Heavy metal pollution from various industries has received much attention worldwide due to their toxicity and persistence in the environment. Traditional water quality monitoring relies on sampling, preservation, transportation and subsequent laboratory analysis. All these procedures require considerable time and make it impossible to timely detect heavy metal contamination. To overcome the drawback, SMFC-based biosensors can be used for monitoring water pollution with heavy metals. The electrochemical characteristics of SMFCs are sensitive to heavy metal ions, therefore, when heavy metals enter them, the cell voltage immediately rises in proportion to their concentration. The change in voltage can be used to find the presence of heavy metals in the water and their concentration. In the present study, the possibilities for monitoring water contaminated with copper, zinc, nickel and chromium by means of SMFC-based biosensors were investigated. The constructed biosensors showed high sensitivity to the ions of the four investigated metals.

Sediment microbial fuel cells are relatively new devices, originally designed to generate electricity from the degradation of organic matter in the soil by microorganisms. Currently, SMFC-based biosensors are attracting scientific interest as new and promising devices for rapid real-time monitoring of water quality and water pollutants. Compared with conventional biosensors, SMFC-based biosensors show advantages such as low cost, simple design, and the possibility of IN SITU operation and self-powered monitoring. SMFCbased biosensors are expected to be used for remote environmental monitoring, therefore evaluating their long-term performance is crucial for their usability. In this paper, we present new data needed to establish the long-term performance of SMFC based biosensors. The present study presents the effect of various environmental factors such as temperature, pH and microbial activity on the performance and effectiveness of the SMFC based biosensor for monitoring water contaminated with heavy metals. The results show stable long-term performance of these devices under various environmental conditions.