Every day, Huskies across the country are making waves in their careers. Now, they’re also harnessing their energy 🌊
Michigan Tech’s Amy Marcarelli in the principal investigator on the
@darpa BioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE) project. The program’s focus is on developing a self-refueling power supply system that could capture and convert microscopic forms of marine biomass into electrical power.
“The basic idea is that microbes move electrons around during their metabolic processes. In a microbial fuel cell, those processes transfer electrons from an anode to a cathode, creating an electrical current we can harness,” said Marcarelli, a distinguished professor of biological sciences at #MichiganTech.
Marcarelli is joined by an all-star lineup from several other institutions and departments:
🧑🔬 “The amount of energy that you can extract out of any MFC is pretty small and restricted by the voltage of these systems. So we have to maximize current, which is a key component of power production.”—Jennifer Becker, Michigan Tech associate professor of civil, environmental, and geospatial engineering with an affiliation in biological sciences.
📊 “We’re using data to understand where in the world’s coastal ocean environment these types of devices could be deployed and successfully generate the power output that the end user would ultimately want.”—Michael Sayers, Michigan Tech Research Institute’s chief research scientist
🪸 “There’s a big part of this that is the survivability of these systems in the ocean. Our system is a combination of custom-machined and off-the-shelf components. In the end, we need to keep seawater out and keep them happy, dry, and functioning.”—Jamey Anderson, assistant director of marine operations at
@greatlakesresearch
Additional co-PIs are Steve Techtmann, professor at
@theohiostateuniversity , Mario Tamburri, professor at the
@univofmaryland , and Juliana D’Andrilli, associate professor at the
@unt .
Dive into biology, engineering, research, and data science that could revolutionize marine sensor deployment at MTU News, available at the link in our bio.
