Several ocean sensing devices, which provide critical information for understanding marine environments, monitoring climate change and maintaining national security, are powered by long underwater cables or lithium-ion batteries.
Now, University of Maryland researcher Dr Stephanie Lansing will use a Phase 1 $7.8m award from DARPA in a collaborative effort to develop a so-called Persistent Oceanographic Device Power (PODPower) system that uses microorganisms in ocean water and specialised bacteria to create a marine-based microbial fuel cell that can produce outputs of up to 10W consistently for a year or more.
“This unique collaboration of interdisciplinary experts will produce a bioinspired system that has game-changing potential to provide direct electric power to improve sensing capabilities while protecting and limiting the impact to the environment through use of this unique bioenergy system,” Dr Lansing said in a statement.
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The PODPower system will be suspended in the water column where it can collect and concentrate ocean microbes and pieces of organic matter in a special fermentation chamber. Bacteria in the fermentation chamber will pre-digest the concentrated material, producing a more highly efficient type of ‘food’ for the second kind of bacteria which colonises on the fuel cell electrodes and releases electrons.
The design is said to rely on an innovative collection net inspired by unique aspects of fish gills, a corkscrew type auger that feeds the organic matter into the fermentation chamber, and a dual cathode system to drive the microbial fuel cell power to higher levels than previous microbial fuel cell systems.
PODPower is funded through DARPA’s BioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE) program, which supports the development and discovery of new and improved technologies that use ocean biomass to generate power and extend the life of ocean-deployed sensors.
In addition to the $7.8m granted for phase one development and deployment, an additional $3.4m is possible to support Phase 2, which will include deployment in multiple settings and generate 100W of power.
The first phase of the project will run through to summer 2026 and includes collaborators from institutions including Battelle, George Washington University, Harvard University, UMD Baltimore County at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), James Madison University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Delaware, and Yokogawa Corporation of America.
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