4E analysis of stacked microbial fuel cell as a component in power plants for power generation and water treatment; with a cost-benefit perspective

Abstract

According to the stackability of microbial fuel cells, we simulated a stacked system of microbial fuel cells in power plants. In this analysis, economic and environmental considerations were taken into account to generalize such systems as equipment in power plants. Firstly, a conduction-based model was applied to prognosticate produced current; then, it was used in energy, exergy, environmental, and economic analyses. A developed programming code was exploited to calculate the model's main outputs, and the code was validated according to an experimental study. Moreover, a parametric study was performed to recognize each parameter's impact on the energy and exergy functions. The results showed that produced power from this stacked system is considerable compared to other energy production units like solid oxide fuel cells. The energy and exergy efficiencies obtained 35 % and 58 %, respectively. The economic results determined that the period of investment return of the system is 2.6 years, which is approximately 5 % lesser than the best performance of solid oxide fuel cell systems. Finally, the environmental results revealed that the toxic production of such systems is negligible (0.000032 kg s−1) rather than conventional systems. Hence, the proposed system could be used as eco-friendly, sustainable, and cost-benefited equipment in power plants to produce water and generate electricity, especially for remote areas.