• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2008.05a
• /
• pp.80-81
• /
• 2008

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.213-217
• /
• 2009

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been known as a new alternative energy conversion technology for treating wastewater and producing electricity simultaneously. A MFC converts the chemical energy of the organic compounds to electrical energy through microbial catalysis at the anode under anaerobic conditions. To examine the performance of MFC, in this work, the characteristics of the efficiency of wastewater treatment and generation of electricity was evaluated for sewage. When acetate as a carbon source was added into the sewage, the removal efficiency of COD was increased from 75.7% to 88.2% and the voltage was increased significantly from 0.22 V to 0.4 V. The influence of distance between anode and cathode was examined and the effect of the surface area of anode was investigated under the various external resistances. It was found that the maximum power density was $610mW/m^2$ and power generation was effective when the distance between the electrodes was shorter and the surface area of the anode was smaller.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.44-48
• /
• 2000

Microbial fuel cells comprising the microorganism P. vulgaris, thionin as a mediator, and various mono- and disaccharides in an anodic compartment have been developed. A cathodic compartment containing a Pt electrode and Fe$(CN)_6^{3-}$ was separated from an anode by the Nafion membrane. From absorbance-time measurements, it was found that the absorbance of thionin was not altered by the addition of P. vulgaris, even in the presence of sugars. However, thionin was effectively reduced when P. vulgaris was present. These results differ substantially from the case of safranine O, a phenazine-derivative, indicating that thionin takes up electrons during the metabolic oxidation processes of carbohydrates. Maximum fuel cell efficiency was observed at 37 $^{\circ}C$, optimum temperature for the growth of P. vulgaris, and 0.5 V cell voltage was obtained, which indicates that the metabolism of the microorganism directly affects the efficiency. Thionin concentration was closely related to cell performance. When the charging-discharging characteristics were tested with glucose, galactose, sucrose, maltose, and trehalose as carbon sources, galactose was found to give the highest coulombic efficiency. Cell performance was almost fully recovered with only small degradation when glucose and sucrose were used in the repetitive operation. Current was maintained nearly twice as long for sucrose than in the case of glucose.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.503-509
• /
• 2013

Electrochemical redox capacity of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) electrode is an important factor in the power density. This study was conducted to investigate the redox capacity of surface modified anode and cathode electrodes by measuring their conductivities. An anode electrode was modified with nitric acid and a cathode electrode was modified with heat treatment. The anode electrode modified with 20 % of the nitric acid concentration showed the highest conductivity of $6.2{\mu}S/cm/g$ and the maximum power density of $306.0mW/m^2$ when used in a MFC. The cathode electrode modified at $472^{\circ}C$ for 18 min showed the highest conductivity of $5.2{\mu}S/cm/g$ and the maximum power density of $276.20mW/m^2$ when used in a MFC. On the other hand, an MFC using both the electrodes showed the highest maximum power density of $408.2mW/m^2$. Meanwhile, a control MFC without modified electrodes generated very small voltage (0.014 mV), so the power density could not be measured.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.192-196
• /
• 2005

Abstract Oligotrophic microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were tested for the continuous monitoring of low biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) by using artificial wastewater, containing glucose and glutamate, as check solution. Ten times diluted trace mineral solution was used to minimize the background current level, which is generated from the oxidation of nitrilotriacetate used as a chelating agent. The feeding rate of 0.53 ml/min could increase the sensitivity from 0.16 to 0.43 ${\mu}$A/(mg BOD/l) at 0.15 ml/min. The dynamic linear range of the calibration curve was between 2.0 and 10.0 mg BOD/l, and the response time to the change of 2 mg BOD/l was about 60 min. The current signal from an oligotroph-type MFCs increased with the increase in salts concentration, and the salt effect could be eliminated by 50 mM phosphate buffer.

• KSBB Journal
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.225-231
• /
• 2014

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) and bioelectrochemical systems are novel bioprocesses which employ exoelectrogenic biofilm on electrode as a biocatalyst for electricity generation and various useful chemical production. Previous reports show that electrogenic biofilms of MFCs are time varying systems and dynamically interactive with the electrically conductive media (carbon paper as terminal electron acceptor). It has been reported that maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method can automatically control load by algorithm so that increase power generation and columbic efficiency. In this study, we developed logic based control strategy for external load resistance by using $LabVIEW^{TM}$ which increases the power production with using flat-plate MFCs and MPPT circuit board. The flat-plate MFCs inoculated with anaerobic digester sludge were stabilized with fixed external resistance from $1000{\Omega}$ to $100{\Omega}$. Automatic load control with MPPT started load from $52{\Omega}$ during 120 hours of operation. MPPT control strategy increased approximately 2.7 times of power production and power density (1.95 mW and $13.02mW/m^3$) compared to the initial values before application of MPPT (0.72 mW and $4.79mW/m^3$).

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.567-578
• /
• 2013

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a bio-electrochemical device that converts chemical energy in the chemical bonds in organic compounds to electrical energy through catalytic reactions of microorganisms under anaerobic conditions. Power density and Coulombic efficiency are significantly affected by the types of microbe in the anodic chamber of an MFC, configurations of the system and operating conditions. The achievable power output from MFC increased remarkably by modifying their designs such as the optimization of MFC configurations, the physical and chemical operating conditions, and the choice of biocatalysts. This article presents a critical review on the recent advances made in MFC research with the emphasis on MFC configurations, optimization of important operating parameters, performances and future applications of MFC.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.414-418
• /
• 2012

The quantity of research on microbial fuel cells has been rapidly increasing. Microbial fuel cells are unique in their ability to utilize microorganisms and to generate electricity from sewage, pig excrement, and other wastewaters which include organic matter. This system can directly produce electrical energy without an inefficient energy conversion step. However, with MFCs maximum power production is limited by several factors such as activation losses, ohmic losses, and mass transfer losses in cathodes. Therefore, electron acceptors such as nitrate and ferric ion in the cathodes were utilized to improve the cathode reaction rate because the cathode reaction is very important for electricity production. When 100 mM nitrate as an electron acceptor was fed into cathodes, the current in single-cathode and dual-cathode MFCs was noted as $3.24{\pm}0.06$ mA and $4.41{\pm}0.08$ mA, respectively. These values were similar to when air-saturated water was fed into the cathodes. One hundred mM nitrate as an electron acceptor in the cathode compartments did not affect an increase in current generation. However, when ferric ion was used as an electron acceptor the current increased by $6.90{\pm}0.36$ mA and $6.67{\pm}0.33$ mA, in the single-cathode and dual-cathode microbial fuel cells, respectively. These values, in single-cathode and dual-cathode microbial fuel cells, represent an increase of 67.1% and 17.6%, respectively. Furthermore, when supplied with ferric ion without air, the current was higher than that of only air-saturated water. In this study, we attempted to reveal an inexpensive and readily available electron acceptor which can replace platinum in cathodes to improve current generation by increasing the cathode reaction rate.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.556-562
• /
• 2015

In order to remove the organic substances and the nitrate-nitrogen contained in wastewater, some researchers have studied the simultaneous removal of organics and nitrogen by using different biocathode microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The operating conditions for removing the contaminants in the MFCs are the external resistances, HRTs, the concentration of the influent wastewater, and other factors. This study aimed to determine the effect of the external resistors and organic loading rates, from the changing HRT, on the removal of the organics and nitrogen and on the production of electric power using the Denitrification Biocathode - Microbial Fuel Cell (DNB-MFC). As regards the results of the study, the removal efficiencies of $SCOD_{Cr}$ did not show any difference, but the nitrate-nitrogen removal efficiencies were increased by decreasing the external resistance. The maximum denitrification rate achieved was $129.2{\pm}13.54g\;NO_3{^-}-N/m^3/d$ in the external resistance $1{\Omega}$, and the maximum power density was $3,279mW/m^3$ in $10{\Omega}$. When the DNB-MFC was operated with increasing influent organic and nitrate loading by reducing the HRTs, the $NO_3{^-}-N$ removal efficiencies were increased linearly, and the maximum nitrate removal rate was $1,586g\;NO^3{^-}-N/m^3/d$ at HRT 0.6 h.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.45-51
• /
• 2015

In this study, continuous microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were operated using non-precious metal catalysts such as iron(II) phthalocyanine (FePc) and cobalt tetramethoxyphenylporphyrin (CoTMPP)) as alternative cathode catalysts for platinum. To evaluate MFCs performance, operational conditions of organic loading rate (OLR) (0.5~3 g COD/L/d) and hydraulic retention rate (HRT) (0.25~1 day) were changed. Power density of MFCs were determined by cathode electrode performance. The maximum power density was $3.3W/m^3$ with platinum at OLR 3 g COD/L/d. Given each HRTs at 1 g COD/L/d, FePc showed to be a better alternative for platinum than CoTMPP because the power density of MFC with FePc was similar to that of MFC with platinum. CoTMPP catalyst, however, showed the lowest power density due to increase of internal resistance during continuous operation.