Taiwan researchers discover more powerful wastewater treating, electricity producing bacterium

In Taiwan, researchers at the National Taiwan Ocean University announced that they have discovered a  new bacterium, Shewanella decolorationis NTOU1, that treats wastewater while generating as much as six times more electricity than the commonly-used Shewanella putrefaciens ATCC8071T. The bacterium survives salinity of up to 75 per mille, and temperatures between 10 and 40 degrees C. In a bench test, the bacteria in 1 cubic meter container, fed 3 liters of lactic acid, produced 50 watts of electricity for 48 hours.

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