Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item Chemical sensors and instrumentation powered by microbial fuel cells(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2007) Angathevar Veluchamy, Raaja Raajan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joseph D. Seymour; Zbigniew Lewandowski (co-chair)The use of microbial fuel cells to power electronic devices is inhibited by their low voltage and current outputs, therefore they cannot be used directly to power electronic devices without appropriate power management. The goal of the thesis is to power chemical sensors but currently there are no available sensor circuitries which can be operated at the low potential and current delivered by a microbial fuel cell. In this thesis, novel sensor circuitry and power management circuitry have been developed. The sensor circuitry can be programmed to operate any generic amperometric sensor and the data is accessible using wireless communication. The power management circuitry boosts the low potential and current outputs of a microbial fuel cell to the higher level required for powering the sensor circuitry. For testing purposes, the sensor circuitry was programmed to operate a chemical sensor measuring copper and lead concentrations in water. This work has demonstrated that by adopting the proposed power management and sensor circuitry, the energy from a microbial fuel cell can be used for powering electronic devices, including chemical sensors deployed at remote locations.Item Structure and activity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 biofilms(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2006) Angathevar Veluchamy, Raaja Raajan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Zbigniew LewandowskiNutrient concentration profiles are affected by the mass transport outside the biofilm, inside the biofilm, and by the structure of the biofilm. To understand the distribution of biofilm activity, it is necessary to correlate the local nutrient concentration, local mass transport in the biofilm and the biofilm structure. The correlations among surface averaged dissolved oxygen concentration, surface averaged relative effective diffusivity, and areal porosity in the biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 grown in a flat plate reactor, were quantified. Three dimensional distributions of local dissolved oxygen concentration, local relative effective diffusivity, and porosity in the biofilm were measured. It was found that the local dissolved oxygen concentrations and relative effective diffusivities correlate weakly with each other or with the areal porosity.