A. S. Vishwanathan

• M.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D.
• Assistant Professor at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Microbial fuel cells harness electrons from bacterial oxidation of substrates and have the potential to address two of the major sustainability issues that confront the globe – production of clean energy and wastewater treatment. Relentless multi-disciplinary efforts have opened up possibilities of enhancing efficiency of these systems in terms of...

Methylene blue undergoes reduction with an accompanying colour change reaction, from blue to colourless, enabling its use as a metric for estimating reducing power. A dye reduction-based electron-transfer activity monitoring (DREAM) assay is demonstrated as a tool to study and understand the process of microbes sourcing electrons from organic subst...

Oxygen availability is a potential rate-limiting step in the bioelectrochemical process catalyzed by microbes in microbial fuel cells (MFC). Determination of oxygen availability using a minimally invasive oxygen sensor is advantageous in terms of ease of usage, maintenance and cost-effectiveness as compared to using conventional probe-type oxygen s...

Vitex negundo L. (Verbenaceae) is a hardy plant, flourishing mainly in the Indian subcontinent. All parts of the plant, from root to fruit, possess a multitude of phytochemical secondary metabolites which impart an unprecedented variety of medicinal uses to the plant. It is interesting to note that a single plant species finds use for treatment of...

Treated wastewater has emerged as an alternate resource to meet the increasing demands for water and clean energy. Decentralised wastewater management systems are gaining importance in developing nations to improve the efficiency and increase the turnover of wastewater treatment. Wastewater characterisation and monitoring are critical for applicati...

This study characterises the interaction between the type IV pilus assembly PilB ATPase of a versatile electroactive microbe, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, and ATP using in silico tools. PilB ATPase, which is associated with different cellular activities, is a protein subunit of type IV pili. A composite model of the protein was generated using the I...

Optofluidic chips represent a cost-effective platform for the development of miniaturized devices to perform biochemical reactions at a microscale. The dye reduction-based electron-transfer activity monitoring (DREAM) assay is a colorimetric approach that has been adopted for the rapid assessment of bacterial activity in bioreactors used in bioreme...

Monitoring the characteristics of wastewater can enable a better choice of the options available for its treatment and also provide a rational basis for the surveillance of the spread of waterborne diseases. Our work focused on bringing down the costs associated with the estimation of the biological and physico-chemical parameters of wastewater at...

This is a first-time report of structural characterization and assessment of the antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles synthesized using the fungus Aspergillus hortai isolated from domestic wastewater. Silver nanoparticles were synthesized using cell-free filtrate of Aspergillus hortai cultured in potato dextrose broth at 60 °C in the pres...

Microbial biofilms play a critical role in environmental biotechnology and associated applications. Biofilm production can be enhanced by inhibiting the function of proteins that negatively regulate their formation. With this objective, an in silico approach was adopted to identify competitive inhibitors of eight biofilm-antagonistic proteins, name...

Duress and acclimatization are the keystones of evolutionary adventure. Bacteria, often considered to be the most primitive, are among the earliest known biological organisms to have inhabited our planet. Over the aeons, however, they have transmuted into veterans by accommodating the predicaments posed by selective pressures into their routine lif...

The capacity of bacteria to form biofilms is an important trait for their survival and persistence. Biofilms occur naturally in soil and aquatic environments, are associated with animals ranging from insects to humans and are also found in built environments. They are typically encountered as a challenge in healthcare, food industry, and water supp...

Pyocyanin, a redox-active phenazine pigment produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, inhibits 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) activity. However, whether pyocyanin can directly block the enzymatic activity by binding at the active site still remains a question because of its ability to produce superoxide radicals and H2O2. With the objective of characterizing thi...

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have shown immense potential as a one-stop solution for three major sustainability issues confronting the world today—energy security, global warming and wastewater management. MFCs represent a cross-disciplinary platform for research at the confluence of the natural and engineering sciences. The diversity of variables i...

Constructed wetland technology (CW) is a mature, low-cost, and environmentally sustainable method frequently used for wastewater treatment. Recently, there has been significant research into Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology due to its potential for simultaneous bioenergy generation and wastewater treatment. The fundamental physical processes wi...

History is witness to plants being an integral part of human evolution, as a source of food, fuel and medicine. Traditional medicine relies extensively on plants and plant products in its holistic approach to treatment of disease, minor or major. However, many plant-based cures in traditional medicine remain undocumented secrets due to unwillingnes...

Biofilms represent a self-contained and self-sustained ecosystem resulting from a synergistic response of bacteria to stress imposed on them by their environment. Biofilms are formed when microorganisms attach to a substratum and to one another in a matrix composed of extracellular polymeric substances. Biofilms are resilient and exhibit properties...

Electrodes based on graphite, graphene, and carbon nanomaterials have been used in the anode chamber of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Carbon quantum dots (C-dots) are a class of versatile nanomaterials hitherto not reported in MFCs. C-dots previously synthesized from coconut husk were reported to possess hydroxyl and carboxyl functional groups on th...