Living and Conducting: Coating Individual Bacterial Cells with In Situ Formed Polypyrrole

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2017-08, Vol.56 (35), p.10516-10520
• Main Authors: Song, Rong‐Bin, Wu, YiChao, Lin, Zong‐Qiong, Xie, Jian, Tan, Chuan Hao, Loo, Joachim Say Chye, Cao, Bin, Zhang, Jian‐Rong, Zhu, Jun‐Jie, Zhang, Qichun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: conducting polymers; energy conversion; microbial fuel cells; polypyrrole; surface chemistry
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201704729

Coating individual bacterial cells with conjugated polymers to endow them with more functionalities is highly desirable. Here, we developed an in situ polymerization method to coat polypyrrole on the surface of individual Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1, Escherichia coli, Ochrobacterium anthropic or Streptococcus thermophilus. All of these as‐coated cells from different bacterial species displayed enhanced conductivities without affecting viability, suggesting the generality of our coating method. Because of their excellent conductivity, we employed polypyrrole‐coated Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1 as an anode in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and found that not only direct contact‐based extracellular electron transfer is dramatically enhanced, but also the viability of bacterial cells in MFCs is improved. Our results indicate that coating individual bacteria with conjugated polymers could be a promising strategy to enhance their performance or enrich them with more functionalities. Surface modification of bacteria: The surface of individual bacterial cells was in situ coated by polypyrrole as a conductive layer to endow bacteria with enhanced electrical conductivity. The PPy coatings promote the contact‐based electron transfer between S. oneidensis MR‐1 and the electrode, leading to a huge improvement in the bioelectricity generation of microbial fuel cells (MFCs).