SCRAPS of food could soon be helping power your home, thanks to an ultra-cheap bacteria-driven battery. Its developers hope that instead of feeding the dog or making garden compost, organic household waste could top up your home’s electricity.
Although such “microbial fuel cells” (MFCs) have been developed in the past, they have always proved extremely inefficient and expensive. Now Chris Melhuish and technologists at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol have come up with a simplified MFC that costs as little as £10 to make.
Right now, their fuel cell runs only on sugar cubes, since…
