Title: Performance of air cathode earthen pot microbial fuel cell for simultaneous wastewater treatment with bioelectricity generation

Authors: Anil Ghadge; M.M. Ghangrekar; Soumya Pandit; Debabrata Das

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India ' Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India ' Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India ' Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India

Abstract: Air cathode earthen pot microbial fuel cell (ACEMFC) was made using low cost earthen pots as a separator coated with conductive carbon black on the exterior to work as a cathode. ACEMFC was operated in fed-batch mode with synthetic wastewater containing acetate as anolyte (0.40 L) at a fixed external resistance of 100 Ω. Carbon cloth (projected surface area of 32 cm²) was used as anode. Sludge collected from the bottom of septic tank was used as an anodic inoculum. An average OCV of 0.62 ± 0.1 V, a Coulombic efficiency of 17 ± 4%, and a peak volumetric power density of 3.56 ± 0.2 W.m10⁻³ was obtained during steady state condition. It was found that ACEMFC produced 45% higher power output when compared with conventional dual chamber earthen pot MFC. This low cost ACEMFC, with total production cost of about 1.5$, as per Indian market, demonstrated its utility as a wastewater treatment and onsite power generation device. However, biofouling was observed on cathode surface of ACEMFC after a couple of weeks of operation resulting in overall performance reduction, which needs to be improved to make this device sustainable for long term operation.

Keywords: air cathode; coulombic efficiency; earthen pot MFC; volumetric power density; wastewater treatment; microbial fuel cells; bioelectricity generation; electricity generation; carbon black; power generation; biofouling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2014.061780

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2014 Vol.17 No.2/3/4, pp.143 - 153

Received: 04 Feb 2013
Accepted: 22 May 2013
Published online: 30 Jun 2014 *

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