Blog Post
Living bricks can generate energy in the home
The Financial • Feb 10, 2021
The Active Living Infrastructure: Controlled Environment (ALICE) consortium has created a prototype that could both revolutionise housing and replace fossil fuels....
The base of the prototype is a wall of “living bricks” which can form entire walls and structures.
These living bricks contain microbes that use liquid waste to generate energy, which can then be turned into electricity and clean water. But it’s not that simple…
In order to know how productive the microbes are, ALICE uses biosensors that record data produced by the microbial electrons.
ALICE then fuses biological and digital technologies to converse with the microbes and see how happy they are. It can tell us whether they need to be fed or warmed to generate more bioelectricity.
ALICE is self-powered by the microbial fuel cells inside each brick. It can not only be used as a source of household energy but can also transform domestic liquid wastes into clean water fit for reuse.
A digital overlay of the information gathered from ALICE’s conversations with the microbial life in each brick, is then displayed back to the household using augmented reality....
BRL Research: Bristol BioEnergy Centre (BBiC)
