Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Research Institute, University of Sadat City (USC), Sadat City, Egypt.
School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
J Appl Microbiol. 2018 Jan;124(1):302-313. doi: 10.1111/jam.13631. Epub 2017 Dec 18.
Globally, sustainable provision of high-quality safe water is a major challenge of the 21st century. Various chemical and biological monitoring analytics are presently utilized to guarantee the availability of high-quality water. However, these techniques still face some challenges including high costs, complex design and onsite and online limitations. The recent technology of using microbial fuel cell (MFC)-based biosensors holds outstanding potential for the rapid and real-time monitoring of water source quality. MFCs have the advantages of simplicity in design and efficiency for onsite sensing. Even though some sensing applications of MFCs were previously studied, e.g. biochemical oxygen demand sensor, recently numerous research groups around the world have presented new practical applications of this technique, which combine multidisciplinary scientific knowledge in materials science, microbiology and electrochemistry fields. This review presents the most updated research on the utilization of MFCs as potential biosensors for monitoring water quality and considers the range of potentially toxic analytes that have so far been detected using this methodology. The advantages of MFCs over established technology are also considered as well as future work required to establish their routine use.
在全球范围内，可持续提供高质量的安全用水是 21 世纪的主要挑战之一。目前，各种化学和生物监测分析方法被用于保证高质量水的供应。然而，这些技术仍然面临一些挑战，包括高成本、复杂的设计以及现场和在线的局限性。利用微生物燃料电池（MFC）-基于生物传感器的新技术具有快速实时监测水源质量的巨大潜力。MFC 具有设计简单和现场感应效率高的优点。尽管之前已经研究了 MFC 的一些传感应用，例如生化需氧量传感器，但最近全球许多研究小组提出了这项技术的新的实际应用，将材料科学、微生物学和电化学领域的多学科科学知识结合在一起。本文综述了最新的关于利用 MFC 作为监测水质的潜在生物传感器的研究，并考虑了迄今为止使用这种方法检测到的各种潜在有毒分析物。还考虑了 MFC 相对于现有技术的优势，以及建立其常规使用所需的未来工作。
