Sediment microbial fuel cell with floating biocathode for organic removal and energy recovery

Abstract

A sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) with three dimensional floating biocathode (FBC) was developed for the electricity generation and biodegradation of sediment organic matter in order to avoid negative effect of dissolved oxygen (DO) depletion in aqueous environments on cathode performance and search cost-effective cathode materials. The biocathode was made from graphite granules with microbial attachment to replace platinum (Pt)-coated carbon paper cathode in a laboratory-scale SMFC (3 L in volume) filled with river sediment (organic content 49±4 g·kg^-1 dry weight). After start-up of 10 days, the maximum power density of 1.00W·m^-3 (based on anode volume) was achieved. The biocathode was better than carbon paper cathode catalyzed by Pt. The attached biofilm on cathode enhanced power generation significantly. The FBC enhanced SMFC performance further in the presence aeration. The SMFC was continuously operated for an over 120-day period. Power generation peaked within 24 days, declined gradually and stabilized at a level of 1/6 peak power output. At the end, the sediment organic matter content near the anode was removed by 29% and the total electricity generated was equal to 0.251 g of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removed.

Keywords

microbial fuel cell (MFC) / sediment / biocathode / electricity generation / organic removal

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50878062 and 51078100), the State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, HIT, China (No. 2010DX11), the National HighTechnology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2009AA064702) and the National Water Pollution Control Technology Major Projects of China (No. 2008ZX07207-005).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg