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

Timely detection and treatment of water pollution is of utmost importance for preventing serious environmental pollution and toxicity to living organisms. Traditional monitoring methods require time for sampling and analysis, and those that provide real-time monitoring are expensive and have limited application. The development of a low-cost sensor for real-time water monitoring will enable wider application and quality management of more water bodies. Guided by this, we constructed and tested a prototype of a biosensor based on a sediment microbial fuel cell. The sensor showed high efficiency and sensitivity to the most common heavy metals pollutants from industrial, agricultural and domestic wastewater. The sensor is designed for both portable and desktop applications, as well as for integration into the technological schemes of enterprises for continuous monitoring.

Sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) are special microbial fuel cells in which the anode is placed in the anaerobic sediment and the cathode is immersed in the surface layer of water. Natural electroactive bacteria decompose organic compounds in sediment, producing electrons and protons. The electrons reach the cathode through an external electrical circuit, while the protons pa ss through the soil layer, which acts as a kind of membrane. Oxygen is in many cases the preferred electron acceptor due to i ts presence in the cathode region and its high potential. Heavy metal ions and other compounds can also be reduced on the cathode, which will increase the energy generated. Based on the above characteristics, SMFCs would be suitable for application as biosensors and would be suitable for monitoring recurrent water pollution with heavy metals. In the present study, the possibility of application of SMFCs as biosensors for recurrent water pollution with copper has been studied. A high correlation was found between the concentration of copper ions and the voltage generated by SMFC, as the coefficient of determination reached 0.9921.