DOW CORNING 1-2577 Conformal Coating as an efficient diffusion material for cathode in the microbial fuel cell

Abstract

In this study, DOW CORNING 1-2577 Conformal Coating was proposed for the cathode diffusion layer of the microbial fuel cell (MFC). In MFCs, stainless steel mesh cathodes using DOW CORNING 1-2577 Conformal Coating/carbon as the diffusion layer and two poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)/carbon diffusion layers and carbon cloth cathode with four poly (tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) diffusion layers were constructed for comparison. Under the same operational condition, the MFCs with the DOW CORNING 1-2577 Conformal Coating/carbon diffusion layer produced the maximum power density of 1585±52 mW·m^-2, compared with those using poly (tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) diffusion layers (1421±45 mW·m^-2) and poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)/carbon diffusion layers (1353±49 mW·m^-2). The DOW CORNING 1-2577 Conformal Coating could be an alternative for the diffusion layer construction in the MFC due to its remarkable performance and much simple construction procedure.

Keywords

microbial fuel cell / diffusion layer / power density / DOW CORNING1-2577 Conformal Coating

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by grants from the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (10K04ESPCT), the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology (2011K0001),the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51039007, 51179212, and 51278500), .

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