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 these
produce almost no waste when broken down, but they aim to move
on to carrot power. "It has to be able to use raw materials,
rather than giving it a refined fuel," says Melhuish. Inside the
Walkman-sized battery, a colony of To continue reading this
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