This is an ongoing research area on voltage reversal, a reported phenomenon in microbial fuel cells.
Several different literature sources have reported a form of electrical shorting between microbial fuel cells stored in the same substrate, known as the shortage phenomenon. This presents some challenges to continued research of practical microbial fuel cell applications. If the reported shortage phenomenon actually exists, it would mean that microbial fuel cells cannot be placed in close proximity to one another in the same substrate. We hypothesize however that the shortage phenomenon is a misdiagnosed form of voltage reversal, a common and well documented problem in microbial fuel cells. This research will incubate microbial fuel cells while carefully monitoring the potential of each electrode, in order to differentiate and identify voltage reversal vs the shortage phenomenon. The experiment shall observe three configurations: first shall be two cells connected in series but incubated in separate substrate, the next shall be another pair in series but incubated the same substrate, and finally the last configuration shall be two cells left unconnected and incubated the same substrate.