Biochemical, Molecular, and Microbial Ecological Aspects of Bioelectrochemical Systems

Electromicrobiology and microbes are capable of conducting extracellular electron transfer, an emerging branch of microbiology that may have far-reaching implications for future renewable energy, waste recycling, and resource recovery. A wide variety of microbes that include bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, and yeasts is known for conducting extracellular electron transfer biochemical reactions. The latest literature indicates that the microbial ecology of extracellular electron transfer in mixed electrogenic communities is very complex and contains many thousands of individual species. Molecular and biochemical mechanisms behind extracellular electron transfer are only beginning to be uncovered by various new studies that have been conducted in the recent past. However, a comprehensive and cohesive collection of information on the aforementioned aspects is currently unavailable in the scientific literature. We provide a comprehensive collection of the most current findings on microbial ecological aspects of extracellular electron transfer. The types of microbes that are used in bioelectrochemical systems, the underlying biochemical mechanisms of extracellular electron transfer microbial enrichment methods for efficient extracellular electron transfer, the role of pure and cocultures, and the role of electron shuttling mediators and quorum sensing are discussed. The latest trends in extracellular electron transfer mechanisms, such as the cable bacteria, are also explored in this chapter. Furthermore, this chapter also addresses the molecular aspects of extracellular electron transfer in bioelectrochemical systems. And it also addresses the current understanding of the molecular and biochemical basis of extracellular electron transfer and the role of genetic engineering in enhancing bioelectrochemical systems and the future use of genome editing methods, such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, for enhancing the performance of bioelectrochemical systems.