Living bricks can generate energy in the home and wean humanity off fossil fuels
The Active Living Infrastructure: Controlled Environment’ (ALICE) research consortium will showcase at The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference today.
ALICE is a collaboration between the University of the West of England, Newcastle University and Translating Nature. The consortium has successfully created a bio-digital communication interface with the ‘living wall’ prototype, which was developed as part of the Living Architecture project that could both revolutionise housing and replace fossil fuels.
The ALICE prototype brings together several ground-breaking threads of bio-digital research. Together it creates a living, breathing, energy-generating microbial system that can simultaneously supply DC power to homes and can, through augmented reality (AR), communicate how productive and ‘healthy it is.
The core Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC) technology, which is the live ‘engine’ driving ALICE, stemmed from work undertaken by Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, Director of the Bristol Bioenergy Centre at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in UWE Bristol.
In 2010 he was awarded a five-year EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) Career Acceleration Fellowship, which built upon the ground-breaking ‘EcoBot’ research, also supported by EPSRC; many of the findings from the five-year fellowship underpin subsequent projects, such as ALICE.
The base of the ALICE prototype is a partition 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.
In order to understand 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, and state whether they need to be fed or warmed to generate more bioelectricity.
Self-powered by the microbial fuel cells inside each brick, ALICE 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 AR; currently this is available on a live web server, with animations representing bioelectrochemical reactions.
Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos said: “It is a great privilege to have our ALICE project introduced at The American Association for the Advancement of Science. The excellent work from our partners at Translating Nature and the University of Newcastle has transformed scientifically complex reactions occurring inside MFCs, into live animations with relatable indicators, fed by real-time data. This makes MFCs more acceptable as we move forward with commercialising the technology”.
UWE Bristol’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Steve West said: “Our world is changing fast and the climate crisis and fuel poverty requires us to adapt and innovate our technological solutions to reduce our impact on the worlds fragile ecosystems.
“This project has taken microbial fuel cell technology to the next level. Our challenge now is to capitalise on the science and translate it at pace into our global real-world living. Lives can be transformed and improved globally as we adopt and spread the science and technology advances.”
Professor Dame Lynn Gladden, Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UKRI, said: “This is a really revolutionary project which could change our residential environment and have a significant impact on how we power our homes in the future. EPSRC is proud to have funded the early investments that led to this work.”
“The results published today are a great example of a collaborative effort in tackling a key issue of the 21st century and should be celebrated as both an achievement for the future of sustainable living and an accomplishment of the science intrinsic to engineering biology.”
Related news

03 April 2025
Interdisciplinary studio bridging the gap between creative industries and technology opens at UWE Bristol
A new £3.6m laboratory has opened at UWE Bristol which will provide a unique arts, humanities and technologies multi-disciplinary space for researchers, entrepreneurs and businesses across the West of England.

28 February 2025
Paramedics in GP surgeries may ease workload but not NHS costs, study finds
Paramedics working in GP surgeries help reduce GP workload but do not contribute to cost savings to the NHS, according to the first major study of the clinical and cost-effectiveness of paramedic compared with GP consultations.

11 February 2025
Comics could help explain science in court, study finds
Comics explaining the complexities of forensic science in simple terms could improve understanding for jurors in court cases, research conducted at UWE Bristol suggests.

06 February 2025
Opinion: ‘We’re ensuring people have access to diverse images for healthcare’
Flicking through the pages of academic medical textbooks back in 2022, our team spotted a surprising omission: a stark absence of images of health conditions on darker skin tones.

03 February 2025
Groundbreaking UWE Bristol project based on children’s lived experiences of racism in the UK set to transform police training
UWE Bristol researchers have worked with over 1,000 primary-aged children to explore everyday experiences of racism to inform future police training.

30 January 2025
Women exercising in gyms face barriers including body image and harassment, study finds
Women exercising in gyms often feel judged for their appearance and performance, leading to a persistent sense of inadequacy, according to a new study.

22 January 2025
Can DIY greening solutions transform your street and combat climate change?
Do-it-yourself (DIY) greening kits could help safeguard the country's most vulnerable communities from the impacts of a rapidly changing environment, according to a new project supported by UWE Bristol.

14 January 2025
UWE Bristol secures British Council grant to strengthen educational ties with three leading Nigerian universities
UWE Bristol has secured a British Council Transnational Education (TNE) grant to work collaboratively with three of Nigeria’s foremost universities.

03 January 2025
Big leap forward for environmentally friendly ‘e-textiles’ technology
Research led by UWE Bristol and the University of Southampton has shown wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) can be both sustainable and biodegradable.

19 December 2024
UWE Bristol academic appointed honorary professor at prestigious Danish university
A UWE Bristol researcher has been appointed an honorary professor at a prestigious university in Denmark.

18 December 2024
Opinion: Christmas… are you ‘totally sleighing it’ or wondering ‘what the elf’?
Could singing in a group bring a moment of calm and boost your mood this Christmas?

10 December 2024
ONS Research Excellence award win for UWE Bristol data research group
UWE Bristol’s Data Research, Access, and Governance Network (DRAGoN) has won the Organisational Excellence Award at the 2024 Office of National Statistics (ONS) Research Excellence Awards.