Bioelectric Powering of CMOS-Based Low-Power Microcontroller System from Stacked Microbial Fuel Cells

An overview of the use of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) as a sustainable energy source is presented to power low-energy devices, focused on the design and performance of a biopowered circuit for powering CMOS-based microcontroller devices. This study aligns with the growing need for renewable and sustainable energy solutions, particularly for sustainable microcontroller applications. By utilization of bioelectricity from the MFCs, it offers an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional energy sources for low-power electronic devices. MFCs work by exploiting microbial activity to produce electrical power, but single cells produce less than 0.8 V; therefore, it is not possible to employ them directly. For this, two stacked configurations, which were series and parallel, as well as a two-stage voltage conversion circuit, were examined. The parallel stack MFCs show a better volumetric power density than the series stack MFCs. The Pololu U1 V11A boost is used to raise the output from the parallelly stacked MFC to 3.5 V, and the LM2577 converter further increases that to 5 V for powering the microcontroller system. A blinking LED test was performed to determine whether the microcontroller worked as expected. Around 89.2% efficiency has been achieved from the developed circuit. Thus, these results point out the potential of parallel-stacked MFCs for powering low-energy devices using bioelectricity.