- #1
Vannay
- 25
- 2
I was reading through a paper about the first case of experimentally proving that electron transfer can occur over the length of a bacterial nanowire. The paper mentioned that, previously, electron transfer was only measured across the thickness of the wire.
"Thus far, there has been no evidence presented to verify electron transport along the length of bacterial nanowires, which can extend many microns, well beyond a typical cell's length. Here we report electron transport measurements along individually addressed bacterial nanowires derived from electron-acceptor limited cultures of the DMRB S. oneidensis MR-1."
Is it not implied by the fact that electron transfer occurs across the thickness of the wire that transport must occur across the length? My reasoning would be if an electron can be transported a finite distance on the wire on the order of the thickness of the wire, then shouldn't it necessarily be able to travel greater distances? It transfers that finite length, then as long as the same voltage is being applied, repeat.
I might be getting caught up in the concept of electron transport where the major breakthrough in the paper was developing a set up that was able to show that this happened when we had no reason to believe that it wouldn't. In other words, it didn't blow anyone's mind that this process occured. It was a big deal THAT it was measured along with some value of resistivity.
Note: The bulk of my academic background is in Physics.
Here is the full paper.
"Thus far, there has been no evidence presented to verify electron transport along the length of bacterial nanowires, which can extend many microns, well beyond a typical cell's length. Here we report electron transport measurements along individually addressed bacterial nanowires derived from electron-acceptor limited cultures of the DMRB S. oneidensis MR-1."
Is it not implied by the fact that electron transfer occurs across the thickness of the wire that transport must occur across the length? My reasoning would be if an electron can be transported a finite distance on the wire on the order of the thickness of the wire, then shouldn't it necessarily be able to travel greater distances? It transfers that finite length, then as long as the same voltage is being applied, repeat.
I might be getting caught up in the concept of electron transport where the major breakthrough in the paper was developing a set up that was able to show that this happened when we had no reason to believe that it wouldn't. In other words, it didn't blow anyone's mind that this process occured. It was a big deal THAT it was measured along with some value of resistivity.
Note: The bulk of my academic background is in Physics.
Here is the full paper.