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Explore the power of microbes with the MudWatt™ Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) Kit. Simply fill this kit with soil from your backyard (or someone else's backyard), along with anything you find in your refrigerator. Within days the attached LED light will start to blink using only the power produced by the electricity-generating microbes in your soil! The MudWatt™ is the perfect educational kit for classrooms and hobbyists since it incorporates a wide range of scientific topics. It's easy to incorporate the MudWatt™ into a class discussion on microbiology, soil chemistry, electrochemistry, or electrical engineering. Visit our Community Page to share ideas and data and take part in the development of MFC technology!

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How does the MudWatt™ Work?

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bio-electrical devices that harness the natural metabolisms of microbes to produce electrical power. Within the MFC, microbes munch up the sugars and other nutrients in their surrounding environment and release a portion of the energy contained within that food in the form of electricity.

Microbes are ubiquitous throughout virtually all soils and sediments on the planet. Among these diverse communities of microbes are particular species with unique metabolic abilities that enable them to expel electrons onto oxidized metal compounds, such as rust. In a sense, these so-called “electrogenic” microbes are able to “breathe” metal compounds much like humans and other organisms breathe oxygen. MFCs employ these unique abilities by providing the electrogenic microbes with a certain configuration of two inert, graphite-based electrodes placed in environments with different levels of oxygen