A new $7.8 million award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will support the development of biologically-powered underwater sensors. Right now, a vast network of underwater sensing devices in oceans around the world conducts environmental monitoring and supports national security—and most of these devices rely on batteries and underwater cables for power.
“The motivation of the project is to eliminate the requirement for periodic battery replacement or recharging, which is expensive and logistically demanding,” says Kevin Sowers, professor of marine biotechnology and a co-PI on the award, which is led by Stephanie Lansing, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland, College Park. The project is supported by DARPA’s BioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE) program and includes researchers from nine universities and companies.
A new fuel source for underwater sensors
The proposed devices, called the Persistent Oceanographic Device Power (PODPower) system, will autonomously draw phytoplankton from the surrounding water into a fermentation chamber. There, microorganisms will break down the phytoplankton into simpler chemical compounds. Finally, other microorganisms in a microbial fuel cell will use those compounds to generate electricity, Sowers explains. Sowers, a microbiologist, will work on engineering bacteria that can break down the phytoplankton into chemicals such as acetic acid that the microbes in the fuel cell can use.
Sowers will also lead efforts to develop a testing environment in the Aquaculture Research Center (ARC) at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) in downtown Baltimore to evaluate components and a complete prototype of the new devices. The current award will support development of a functioning prototype, and there is the potential for $3.4 million more for testing in the open ocean.
“This unique collaboration of interdisciplinary experts will produce a bio-inspired system that has game-changing potential to provide direct electric power to improve sensing capabilities while protecting and limiting the impact to the environment through use of this unique bioenergy system,” Lansing said.
Tags: CNMS, MarineBiotech, Research