Making
Soil-Powered Computing
Possible.
Terracell leverages the power of naturally occurring soil microbes to generate energy, supplying renewable power for IoT applications where other energy sources fall short.
Problem:
Depletion & Pollution
IoT sensors are largely restricted to places where they could plug into the grid. Batteries run out of power over time while solar panels fail when they become covered by mud or foliage, and both contain heavy metals and toxins that can pollute their deployment sites.
Solution:
Soil Microbial Fuel Cell
Terracell is a Soil Microbial Fuel Cell (SMFC), which acts like a battery with an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte. But instead of depleting the reactants within, it produces power using the organic carbons from the environment, making it a sustainable alternative for low-power applications.
Previous SMFCs needed to be submerged in water or saturated soil. Our novel cell can operate in soil with a volumetric water content of only 42%.
Our open source design is accessible to anyone with access to a hardware store and basic prototyping equipment.
Where can Terracell technology be applied?
Smart Green Infrastructure
Green infrastructure (GI) offers many benefits to urban environments, but its effectiveness is not well understood. SMFC-powered GI monitoring can be a compact, low-maintenance and small-footprint alternative to systems powered by solar energy.
Greenhouse Sensing
High-tech greenhouse farming currently requires potentially hazardous and short-lived batteries that are difficult to recover in large systems. SMFC-powered sensors can harvest energy straight from the soil itself, and even potentially be integrated into raised grow beds.
Agricultural Monitoring
SMFC-powered sensors can be designed for large-scale deployment across vast farmlands. Installed directly in the soil they would be monitoring, they can transmit localized, high-resolution data to central receivers, helping optimize smart irrigation, pest control, or nutrient delivery.
Our journal paper is published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT)
This research is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under award number CNS-2038853. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
