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Bad wine makes for good energy
Featured in MSNBC: December 15, 2009

A bad bottle of wine could drop your electrical and gas bills. Using widely available microbes, scientists in the United States and India are turning the unused sugar and unwanted vinegar resulting from improper fermentation into electricity and hydrogen. The technology could provide a new and cost effective way to clean wastewater from wineries and get some value out of a bad bottle of wine. “There is nothing special about the bacteria,” said Bruce Logan, a scientist at Penn State University who recently installed a microbial electrolysis cell at a winery in Napa Valley, Calif. “We just give them a good environment to grow in.” While Logan uses a microbial electrolysis cell to split water, a group of scientists from India recently developed a microbial fuel cell that uses wine to produce energy. “Sugars like glucose, alcohols and effluents containing sugars or alcohols can be used (to produce electricity),” said Sheela Berchmans, a professor at the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in India, who recently co-authored a paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.