Allometric scaling of microbial fuel cells and stacks: The lifeform case for scale-up

Greenman, John and Ieropoulos, Ioannis A. (2017) Allometric scaling of microbial fuel cells and stacks: The lifeform case for scale-up. Journal of Power Sources, 356, 365-370. (doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2017.04.033).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This case study reports for the first time on the comparison between allometric scaling of lifeforms and scale-up of microbial fuel cell entities; enlarging individual units in volume, footprint and electrode surface area but also multiplying a static size/footprint and electrode surface area to scale-up by stacking. A study published in 2010 by DeLong et al. showed for the first time that Kleiber's law does not apply uniformly to all lifeforms, and that in fact growth rate for prokaryotes is superlinear, for protists is linear and for metazoa is sublinear. The current study, which is utilising data from previous experiments, is showing for the first time that for individual MFC units, which are enlarged, growth rate/power is sublinear, whereas for stacks this is superlinear.

Text

2017 Allometric scaling_iai_latest - Accepted Manuscript

Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

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