Analysis and Performance Evaluation of Microbial Fuel Cells for Electricity Generation

This research work is focused on the analysis and performance evaluation of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) consisting of multiple one chamber connected in series and parallels for investigation of electricity generation. Using six units (i.e., unit A, unit B, unit C, unit D, unit E, unit F, unit G and unit H) stacked MFCs, the fuel cells were analyzed and evaluated for performance. The results obtained with a single unit microbial fuel cells show that, unit (A) produced an average power of 0.224mW, unit (B) an average power of 0.179mW, unit (C) an average power of 0.138mW, unit (D) an average power of 0.092mW, unit (E) an average power of 0.058mW, unit (F) an average power of 0.036mW, unit (G) an average power of 0.018mW, and unit (H) an average power of 0.005mW. It was observed that decrease in number of microbial fuel cells lead to a corresponding decrease in voltage and current generated, thus drop in power. Conversely, when the unit microbial fuel cells were connected together in series and parallel, improvement in power generation was recorded. An average power of 2.681mW and 2.572mW were obtained from series and parallel connection respectively.Keywords: Microbial fuel cells, anode, cathode, power, renewable energy, electricity generatio

EKSPLORASI SUBSTRAT SINGLE-CHAMBER AIR-CATHODE MICROBIAL FUEL CELL DENGAN ELEKTRODA STAINLESS STEEL DAN KARBON AKTIF

Pengembangan energi substitusi terbarukan dan ramah lingkungan harus dilakukan untuk menggantikan peran energi fosil. Salah satu teknologi untuk menghasilkan energi ini adalah microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Teknologi ini memanfaatkan mikroorganisme untuk menghasilkan listrik secara langsung melalui perombakan molekul organik dalam proses respirasi seluler. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian awal yang bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi substrat dan mikroorganisme yang berpotensi untuk digunakan dalam teknologi MFCs. Tipe reaktor MFCs yang digunakan adalah membraneless, single chamber air-cathode. Substrat yang diinokulasi ke dalam reaktor diambil dari tiga sumber yang berbeda, yaitu endapan lumpur bakau, tanah berlumpur dari kebun dan endapan saluran pembuangan rumah tangga. Material elektroda yang digunakan adalah kombinasi stainless steel mesh dan karbon aktif. MFCs dioperasikan selama 3 siklus (1 siklus = 7 hari), dan di akhir siklus, reaktor MFCs dibersihkan dan diganti dengan substrat yang baru. Hasil pengoperasian MFCs selama 3 siklus menunjukkan bahwa substrat dari endapan lumpur bakau menghasilkan tegangan listrik sebesar 101,54 mV. Sedangkan, substrat tanah berlumpur dan endapan saluran pembuangan rumah tangga menghasikan tegangan sebesar 15,8 mV dan 13,06 mV. Dengan penelitian yang lebih mendalam, substrat endapan lumpur bakau berpotensi untuk digunakan dalam teknologi MFCs. Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memperkenalkan teknologi MFCs kepada masyarakat, agar dapat dikembangkan untuk mengelola limbah dan menghasilkan energi terbarukan

Microbial fuel cell for nutrient recovery and electricity generation from municipal wastewater under different ammonium concentrations

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd In the present study, a dual-compartment microbial fuel cell (MFC) was constructed and continuously operated under different influent concentrations of ammonium-nitrogen (5–40 mg/L). The impacts of ammonium on organics removal, energy output and nutrient recovery were investigated. Experimental results demonstrated that this MFC reactor achieved a CDO removal efficiency of greater than 85%. Moreover, excess ammonium concentration in the feed solution compromises the generation of electricity. Simultaneously, the recovery rate of phosphate achieved in the MFC was insignificantly influenced at the wider influent ammonium concentration. In contrast, a high concentration of ammonium may not be beneficial for its recovery

Recent advancements in real-world microbial fuel cell applications

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. This short review focuses on the recent developments of the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology, its scale-up and implementation in real world applications. Microbial Fuel Cells produce (bio)energy from waste streams, which can reduce environmental pollution, but also decrease the cost of the treatment. Although the technology is still considered “new” it has a long history since its discovery, but it is only now that recent developments have allowed its implementation in real world settings, as a precursor to commercialisation

Treatment of Sewage (Domestic Wastewater or Municipal Wastewater) and Electricity Production by Integrating Constructed Wetland with Microbial Fuel Cell

Proper treatment of wastewater is important to human health and societal development, and the commonly applied wastewater treatment technologies based on aerobic treatment have a significant demand for energy. Thus, new treatment technologies with low energy consumption and possible recovery of valuable resources (e.g., energy and water) from wastewater become of strong interest. Among the newly developed concepts, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) integrated with constructed wetland appear to be very attractive because of direct electricity generation from organic compounds and treatment of wastewater. Constructed wetland coupled with microbial fuel cell (CW-MFC) is an emerging technology in recent years and has attracted a lot of attention from researchers in the fields of wastewater treatment and bioenergy production. CW-MFC is a promising technology in the fields of wastewater treatment and bioenergy. However, at current power levels, the advantage of combining the two is mainly because of the enhancement of wastewater treatment in anaerobic zones within the wetland. New operational strategies need to be explored to increase and utilize electricity output

A Review on Electrical Behavior of Different Substrates, Electrodes and Membranes in Microbial Fuel Cell

The devices, which convert the energy in the form of electricity from organic matters, are called microbial fuel cell (MFC). Recently, MFCs have been given a lot of attention due to their mild operating conditions, and various types of biodegradable substrates have been used in the form of fuel. Traditional MFCs were included in anode and cathode chambers, but there are single chamber MFCs. Microorganisms actively catabolize substrate, and bioelectricities are produced. In the field of power generation from non-conventional sources, apart from the benefits of this technique, it is still facing practical constraints such as low potential and power. In this study, most suitable, natural, low cost MFCs components are electrodes (anode and cathode), organic substrates, membranes and its design is selected on the basis of maximum potential (voltage) as an electrical parameter, which indicates a vital role of affecting factor in MFC for sustainable power production

Biofilm re-vitalization using hydrodynamic shear stress for stable power generation in microbial fuel cell

Viable electroactive biofilm formation, allowing considerable conversion capacity and opportunities for extracellular electron transfer (EET) is essential for sustainable and long term stable power generation in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). However, over the time, the anodic biofilm can be particularly detrimental for electrogenesis due to the accumulation of more dead cells and that increases the charge transfer resistance as well as reduces the electrocatalytic efficiency. In this study, flow induced shear stresses (4.38, 9.34 and 14.92 mPa) were employed to revitalize the biofilm by removing the inert biomass for the maintenance of stable power in MFCs. Among them, the moderate shear stress (9.34 mPa) successfully reduced the thickness and thereby revitalized the biofilm within a short time. The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and cell viability count analysis of the biofilms confirmed that the shear stress (9.34 mPa) reduced the dead cells accumulation in the biofilm. Moreover, this treatment significantly reduced the polarization resistance (68%) by dislodging nonconductive inert dead cells from the surface. Our results revealed that the application of shear stress could be an effective method to maintain the stable power generation by reducing the thickness and increasing the cell viability of the biofilm in the MFC

Teknologi Bersih Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) dari Limbah Cair Tempe Sebagai Sumber Energi Listrik Terbarukan

Microbial Fuel Cell represent one of the technology convert energi exploiting ability of  bakteri catalise used to metabolism in form of bacterium.  Abacterium here is anaerob bacterium, where its bacterium can convert assortedly of organic compound become CO2, water, and energi. Through MFC some of yielded energi can be taken in in the form of electrics. MFC consist of two room which consist of anodize and cathode room, bacterium live at anodize room and alter substrat like glucose, acetate also liquid waste become CO2, proton, and electron. This attempt is conducted by including tempe liquid waste media into chamber counted each 400 ml and 800 ml., dominant microbe in tempe liquid waste is Clostridium sp microbe. Electrolyte condensation 0,1N  also passed to each volume 400 ml and this 800 research ml.  it is got by highest voltage that is  tempe liquid waste volume 800 ml electrode diameter and ml 0,4 cm equal to 675.  best Power Density mV  at  tempe liquid waste volume 800 ml that is at electrode diameter 0,4 cm at second hour equal to 244,11 mW / cm2

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION FROM INDUSTRIAL WASTEWATER THROUGH MICROBIAL FUEL CELL

The present study presents a comparison of the electricity generation from industrial wastewater via Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC). Four experimental setups with four types of MFC were developed for this study. For MFC 1, 75% of wastewater from Factory A added to a fixed concentration of cow manure to obtain a solution of 600ml in the anodic chamber while adding distilled water into the cathodic chamber. Contrastingly, for MFC 2, 75% of wastewater from Factory A was added to a fixed concentration of cow manure to obtain a solution of 600ml in the anodic chamber, whereas distilled water mixed with 15g of potassium ferricyanide was added to the cathodic chamber. For MFC 3, a similar setup was made as in MFC 1 though it utilizes wastewater from Factory B. MFC 4 in return replicated the setup of MFC 2, yet the wastewater was collected from Factory B. Two (2) tests were conducted where Test 1 was to compare the voltage readings from MFC 1 and MFC 3, while Test 2 was for MFC 2 and MFC 4. It was observed that the voltage produced by the wastewater from Factory A was higher than that of voltage produced from Factory B by 41% in test 1 and 82.4% in test 2. Interestingly, the addition of potassium ferricyanide further increased the voltage by 63.17% when comparing between MFCs 4 and 3, while 111% for MFCs 2 and 1, respectively. Hence, it can be deduced that the addition of an external electron acceptor such as the potassium ferricyanide greatly increases the voltage produced. For future studies, other types of external electron acceptors could be tested in identifying its potential in improving the capability of the MFC

Treatment of phenanthrene and benzene using microbial fuel cells operated continuously for possible in situ and ex situ applications

Bioelectrochemical systems could have potential for bioremediation of contaminants either in situ or ex situ. The treatment of a mixture of phenanthrene and benzene using two different tubular microbial fuel cells (MFCs) designed for either in situ and ex situ applications in aqueous systems was investigated over long operational periods (up to 155 days). For in situ deployments, simultaneous removal of the petroleum hydrocarbons (>90% in term of degradation efficiency) and bromate, used as catholyte, (up to 79%) with concomitant biogenic electricity generation (peak power density up to 6.75 mWm−2) were obtained at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 10 days. The tubular MFC could be operated successfully at copiotrophic (100 ppm phenanthrene, 2000 ppm benzene at HRT 30 days) and oligotrophic (phenanthrene and benzene, 50 ppb each, HRT 10 days) substrate conditions suggesting its effectiveness and robustness at extreme substrate concentrations in anoxic environments. In the MFC designed for ex situ deployments, optimum MFC performance was obtained at HRT of 30 h giving COD removal and maximum power output of approximately 77% and 6.75 mWm−2 respectively. The MFC exhibited the ability to resist organic shock loadings and could maintain stable MFC performance. Results of this study suggest the potential use of MFC technology for possible in situ/ex situ hydrocarbon-contaminated groundwater treatment or refinery effluents clean-up, even at extreme contaminant level conditions