Tackling our Legacy

Where to go from here… That’s a question I’m always facing as a scientist. If you think of all the research tracks I’ve taken as a subway map, I’ve just left the second station on the eighth new train.

I don’t know specifically where this research is going to go. If I did –borrowing from Albert Einstein – it wouldn’t be research. But given the results from this summer, I can make a few statements and arrive at a conclusion:

• These preliminary results show promise in terms of bioremediation of sediment.
• The components and computer code to make Arduino-based remote sensors are relatively easy to build.
• Without addressing the legacy of nutrient pollution in the lakes, land use changes upstream are going to take decades to yield downstream changes.

Given those statements, I plan to keep studying the ability of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to remediate lake sediment. By accelerating the decomposition and oxidation of the organic-rich lake sediments, they will be less likely to release nutrients back into the water column.

The biggest challenge and unknown is how this work scales up. Being able to demonstrate success in a little 4-inch diameter fuel cell is one thing, but MFC electrode materials are expensive and the lake is huge. But the advantages of using MFCs for remediation is that they're passive and they operate 24/7/365.

There are several big research groups looking at using MFC technology in wastewater treatment and it's a small step from treating sewage in a wastewater settling tank to treating organic-rich sediment at the bottom of a lake.