Study on a single Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) for electricity generation and waste treatment

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is an electrochemical technology that converts chemical energy to electrical energy such as battery. This technology has many advantages such bio-hydrogen production and wastewater treatment by producing electricity as the side product. This research focused on the study of Single Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (SCMFC) for electricity generation and study the effects on waste water quality. The system tested in SCMFC consist of growth media containing activates sludge from wastewater treatment facility, carbon cloth as the anode, cathode and titanium as the catalyst along with polysulfone membrane that acts as the proton exchange membrane. During the experiment period the SCMFC system was tested for electricity parameter through polarization and power density curve using the voltage reading that was collected along the period, both showed the value were high at the beginning with voltage reading up to 0.31 V then slowly decrease to 0.1 V`. Then, the microbes that attached to the anode underwent Gram staining and it was identified that both types of Gram microbes were involved for the electric produced. Furthermore, COD test also showed that the COD reading gradually decrease over time and the test showed that COD removal rate of 27.27 %. Lastly, the structure of anode under SEM verified that there was microbial attachment on the anode that was characterized by the spherical and rod shaped organism on the anode. This conclude that SCMFC has promising potential to be a new source of energy as it can remove COD.