• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.387-394
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• 2008

The toxicity of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) and formaldehyde (FA) on the indigenous microbial community in forest soil was studied. MTBE, TBA and FA with different concentrations were added into microcosms containing forest soil samples. After 10 and 30 days, total viable cell number and dehydrogenase activity in the microcosms were evaluated. Bacterial communities in the microcosms were also analyzed using a denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Dehydrogenase activity and total viable cell number were decreased according to the increase of MTBE, TBA and FA concentrations (P<0.05). FA toxicity was the highest, but TBA toxicity was the lowest. The results of principal component analysis using DGGE fingerprints showed that the microbial communities contaminated MTBE, TBA and FA were grouped by exposure time not exposure concentration. Dominant species in the microcosms were as follows: Photobacterium damselae sub sp. and Bacillus sp. KAR28 for MTBE; Mycobacterium sp. and Uncultured Clostridium sp. for TBA; and Uncultured Paenibacillaceae bacterium and Anxynobacillus, Flavithermus for FA.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.410-420
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• 2012

The heavy reliance on fossil fuels, especially oil and gas has triggered the global energy crisis. Continued use of petroleum fuels is now widely recognized as unsustainable because of their depleting supplies and degradation to the environment. To become less dependent on fossil fuels, current world is shifting paradigm in energy by developing alternative energy sources mainly through the utilization of renewable energy sources. In particular, bioenergy recovery from wastes with the help of microorganism is viewed as one of the promising ways to mitigate the current global warming crisis as well as to supply global energy. It has been proved that microorganism can generate power by converting organic matter into electricity using microbial fuel cells (MFCs). MFC is a bioelectrochemical device that employs microbes to generate electricity from bio-convertible substrate such as wastewaters including municipal solid waste, industrial, agriculture wastes, and sewage. Sustainability, carbon neutral and generation of renewable energy are some of the major features of MFCs. However, the MFC technology is confronted with a number of issues and challenges such as low power production, high electrode material cost and so on. This paper reviews the recent developments in MFC technology with due consideration of electrode materials used in MFCs. In addition, application of biocathodes in MFCs has been discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.758-763
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• 2014

Soil microbial fuel cells (SMFC) have gained a great attention as an eco-friendly technology that can simultaneously generate electricity and treat organic pollutants from the contaminated soil. We evaluated the effect of electrode spacing and size on the performance of SMFC treating soil contaminated with organic pollutants. Maximum power density decreased with increase in electrode distance or decrease in electrode size, likely due to higher internal resistance. The maximum voltage and power density decreased from 326 mV and $19.5mW/m^2$ with 4 cm of electrode distance to 222 mV and $5.9mW/m^2$ with 9 cm of electrode distance. In case of electrode size test, the maximum voltage and power density generated was 291 mV, $0.34mW/m^3$ when both of anode and cathode area were $64cm^2$ with 4 cm of electrode distance. The maximum voltage decreased by 19~29% when the anode area decreased to $16cm^2$ while only 3~12% of voltage decreased with cathode area decrease. The maximum power density decreased by 49~68% with decreasing anode size, and by 29~47% with decreasing cathode size. These results showed that the anode area had more significant effects than the cathode area on the power generation of SMFC which has a high internal resistance due to a coexistence of soil and wastewater in the reactor.