Let the microbes power your sensing display

Energy autonomy is a crucial bottleneck for consumer electronics and low-cost devices that are a pillar for the Internet of Things era. In this work, we present a self-sustainable sensor device that drives an e-paper digital display powered by the energy produced by colonies of electrogenic bacteria in symbiosis with plants. The power management subsystem has been designed to meet the requirements of the sensing unit and to adapt to the supply provided by the Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell (PMFC). Differently from others energy harvesting technologies, PMFCs rely on bacteria, living organisms that cannot be modeled and interfaced with electronics using traditional approaches. Results demonstrate that the proposed solution allows to realize a completely sustainable monitoring device that features potentially unlimited lifetime.