Abstract
The focus of microbial fuel cell research in recent years has been on the development of materials, microbes, and transfer of charges in the system, resulting in a substantial improvement in current density and improved power generation. The cathode is generally recognized as the limiting factor due to its high-distance proton transfer, slow oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and expensive materials. The heterogeneous reaction determines power generation in MFC. This comprehensive review describes-recent advancements in the development of cathode materials and catalysts associated with ORR. The recent studies indicated the utilization of different metal oxides, the ferrite-based catalyst to overcome this bottleneck. These studies conclude that some cathode materials, in particular, graphene-based conductive polymer composites with non-precious metal catalysts provide substantial benefits for sustainable development in the field of MFCs. Furthermore, it also highlights the potentiality to replace the conventional platinum air cathode for the large-scale production of the next generation of MFCs. It was evident from the experiments that cathode catalyst needs to be blended with conductive carbon materials to make cathode conductive and efficient for ORR. This review discusses various antifouling strategies for cathode biofouling and its effect on the MFC performance. Moreover, it also depicts cost estimations of various catalysts essential for further scale-up of MFC technology.
Highlights
Ever since the industrial revolution, the food, water, and energy resources have been getting polluted and depleted with rising population and urbanization [1]
When a secondary metal is introduced to a metal electrocatalyst, the particle size reduces, resulting in an enhanced lattice strain and, electrocatalytic activity
It is been shown that multi-component catalysts boost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity, but it is not clear which multi-catalyst exhibits the highest enhanced ORR activity. more research is required to optimize the combination of components on various multi-component catalysts
Summary
Ever since the industrial revolution, the food, water, and energy resources have been getting polluted and depleted with rising population and urbanization [1]. Alternative energy resources for fuel supply are being used in an increasing trend [3] This includes a solution that produces energy from organic waste and processes it concurrently by microbial fuel cells (MFCs) [4,5,6,7]. Oxygen, as gas reacts and is combined with protons (H+) present in the electrolyte and electrons (e−), are transported via metallic wire from the anode. This ORR reaction on the cathode surface needs high energy. The best cathode catalyst in an MFC provides efficient ORR kinetics, durability, lower over-potential activation, and is cost-effective [32,33]. The present review overall discusses the usage of various types of cathode catalysts in the MFCs
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