Effects of flow rate and chemical oxygen demand removal characteristics on power generation performance of microbial fuel cells

The energy contained in wastewaters has been identified as a promising sustainable energy resource that could be harvested by using microbial fuel cells (MFC). When dealing with real wastewaters, the MFCs should be able to manage high flow rates and flow rates fluctuations. In this work, the short-term effects of the influent flow rate variations on the performance of a microbial fuel cell has been studied. With this aim, the influent flow rate was stepwise increased from 0.72 to 7.2 L/d and then stepwise decreased. The obtained results indicate that, on the one hand, an increase in the influent flow rate leads to higher chemical oxygen demand removal rates up to 396 g/(L/d) and higher electric power generation almost 18 mW/m2, but to lower coulombic efficiencies. On the other hand, the reduction of the flow rate increases the coulombic efficiencies, as well as the percentage of chemical oxygen demand removed, but decreases electric power generation. In the short-term, the exposition to higher influent flow rates causes the growth of the microbial population of the MFC, the growth of the non-electrogenic microorganisms being higher than that of the electrogenic ones. The higher growth of non-electrogenic microorganisms may lead to lower coulombic efficiencies.

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Wastewater Treatment and Online Chemical Oxygen Demand Estimation in a Cascade of Microbial Fuel Cells

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research ◽

10.1021/acs.iecr.7b02586 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 56 (44) ◽

pp. 12471-12478 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Didac Recio-Garrido ◽

Ademola Adekunle ◽

Michel Perrier ◽

Vijaya Raghavan ◽

Boris Tartakovsky

Keyword(s):

Wastewater Treatment ◽

Fuel Cells ◽

Chemical Oxygen Demand ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Oxygen Demand ◽

Demand Estimation

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Generation of Electricity and Analysis of Microbial Communities in Wheat Straw Biomass-Powered Microbial Fuel Cells

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.02240-08 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 75 (11) ◽

pp. 3389-3395 ◽

Cited By ~ 122

Author(s):

Yifeng Zhang ◽

Booki Min ◽

Liping Huang ◽

Irini Angelidaki

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cells ◽

Chemical Oxygen Demand ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Microbial Ecology ◽

Wheat Straw ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Electricity Generation ◽

Oxygen Demand ◽

Wheat Straw Hydrolysate ◽

Wheat Straw Biomass

ABSTRACT Electricity generation from wheat straw hydrolysate and the microbial ecology of electricity-producing microbial communities developed in two-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were investigated. The power density reached 123 mW/m2 with an initial hydrolysate concentration of 1,000 mg chemical oxygen demand (COD)/liter, while coulombic efficiencies ranged from 37.1 to 15.5%, corresponding to the initial hydrolysate concentrations of 250 to 2,000 mg COD/liter. The suspended bacteria found were different from the bacteria immobilized in the biofilm, and they played different roles in electricity generation from the hydrolysate. The bacteria in the biofilm were consortia with sequences similar to those of Bacteroidetes (40% of sequences), Alphaproteobacteria (20%), Bacillus (20%), Deltaproteobacteria (10%), and Gammaproteobacteria (10%), while the suspended consortia were predominately Bacillus (22.2%). The results of this study can contribute to improving understanding of and optimizing electricity generation in microbial fuel cells.

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Power generation performance of microbial fuel cells with elephant grass straw hydrolyzate

2013 International Conference on Materials for Renewable Energy and Environment ◽

10.1109/icmree.2013.6893656 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Rong Pan ◽

Sheng Zhang ◽

Yunxiang Yu ◽

Jiaquan Teng ◽

Shibin Xia

Keyword(s):

Power Generation ◽

Fuel Cells ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Elephant Grass ◽

Power Generation Performance

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COD Removal and Electricity Generation From Domestic Wastewater Using Different Anode Materials in Microbial Fuel Cells

International Journal of Chemoinformatics and Chemical Engineering ◽

10.4018/ijcce.2019010101 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

G. Shyamala ◽

N. Saravanakumar ◽

E. Vamsi Krishna

Keyword(s):

Power Generation ◽

Wastewater Treatment ◽

Fuel Cells ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Treatment Plant ◽

Oxygen Demand ◽

Domestic Wastewater ◽

Salt Bridge ◽

Anode Chamber ◽

Cathode Chamber

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) set a new trend of converting chemical energy or bio energy to electricity from wastewater (domestic and industries) at the same time removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) from the wastewater. Electrical energy generated from microbial fuel cell could be used for small electrical device example biosensors. The main components of MFCs are the anode, and the cathode salt bridge. It contains an anode chamber and a cathode chamber which separate electrodes for the production of electricity, using wastewater in an anaerobic chamber helps grow native microorganisms. Adding substrates increases productivity of the electrons that are moving from the anode chamber to the cathode chamber by help of the salt bridge. Bioreactors based on power generation in MFCs are a new approach to wastewater treatment. Power generation and current is modulated in this system. If it is optimised, MFCs would prove to be new method to offset wastewater treatment plant operating costs.

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The Comparison of Substrate Changes in Microbial Fuel Cells Using Excess Sludge and Simple Anaerobic Digestion

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.864-867.1839 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 864-867 ◽

pp. 1839-1842

Author(s):

Xiao Qin Zhao ◽

Xiao Jie Sun ◽

Su Na Wei ◽

Jiang Cheng Liang ◽

Yang Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cells ◽

Anaerobic Digestion ◽

Chemical Oxygen Demand ◽

Microbial Fuel Cells ◽

Oxygen Demand ◽

Control Device ◽

Excess Sludge ◽

Upward Trend ◽

Air Cathode ◽

Soluble Chemical Oxygen Demand

Based on the previous studies, this experiment presented a new kind of microbial fuel cells (MFC), single-chamber air cathode microbial fuel cells without proton membrane. After investigating the contrast of substrate changes in microbial fuel cells and simple anaerobic digestion, the analysis results of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), TP, TN and NH3-N show that: SCOD increase firstly, then decrease, to the end, descend. As a result, we find that SCOD in MFC is lower than that in control device (CD). Throughout the whole reaction period, TP in MFC is lower than that in CD. TN and NH3-N show upward trend after a reaction period.

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