Thermally activated long range electron transport in living biofilms†
Matthew D. Yates,Joel P. Golden,Jared Roy,Sarah M. Strycharz-Glaven,Stanislav Tsoi,Jeffrey S. Erickson,Mohamed Y. El-Naggar,Scott Calabrese Barton,Leonard M. Tender
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics Pub Date : 09/28/2015 00:00:00 , DOI:10.1039/C5CP05152E
Abstract

Microbial biofilms grown utilizing electrodes as metabolic electron acceptors or donors are a new class of biomaterials with distinct electronic properties. Here we report that electron transport through living electrode-grown Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms is a thermally activated process with incoherent redox conductivity. The temperature dependency of this process is consistent with electron-transfer reactions involving hemes of c-type cytochromes known to play important roles in G. sulfurreducens extracellular electron transport. While incoherent redox conductivity is ubiquitous in biological systems at molecular-length scales, it is unprecedented over distances it appears to occur through living G. sulfurreducens biofilms, which can exceed 100 microns in thickness.

Graphical abstract: Thermally activated long range electron transport in living biofilms