Utilizing Dairy Wastewater for Electricity Generation Using Environment-Friendly Double Chambered Microbial Fuel Cell

Authors

  • Anand Paraksh
  • Shaheen Aziz
  • Imran Nazir
  • Suhail A Soomro

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24949/njes.v8i1.160

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) provide a novel bioprocessing strategy to produce sustainable energy and wastewater treatment. It produces electricity and under certain conditions, biogas from biodegradable compounds and simultaneously
reduces carbohydrates and complex substrates in wastewater. MFC with saline catholyte was used in this laboratory scale study. Salt-bridge of dimensions of 5 cm length and 2 cm diameter was used in a plastic MFC unit with electrodes
manufactured to the same dimensions (5×5). Dairy wastewater was used as the substrate, with its microorganism as the biocatalyst. The dual chambered MFC was operated at room temperature. The study was carried out in three experiments. In the first experiment, the maximum voltage of 0.36 V and current of 0.35A was generated. In experiment 2 and 3 the maximum voltages were 0.42 V, 0.46 V and maximum current were 0.36A and 0.42A respectively were obtained per liter of the dairy wastewater. The MFC was operated for 7 days while the performance was monitored every 1 hr. The main aspects of MFC research are to produce the cost of treatment as well as simplifying operational or functional conditions. MFCs can be the next generation of fuel cell technology and thus might play an important role in energy conservation, electricity generation, bio-hydrogen production, biosensors and wastewater treatment as well as in alternate fuel utilization using microbes to generate electricity.

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Published

2016-09-09

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Section

Engineering Sciences