Abstract
With the increasing population and industrialization, the demand of electricity is increasing day-by-day and high energy demands have adverse effects on fossil fuels consumption. The sustainable development goal (SDG) 7 focuses on green energy. Due to this, global attention is shifted from conventional sources to non conventional energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, waste biomass, etc. This work explores the feasibility of a microbial fuel cell for bio-electricity production. The effect of different catholytes on bio electricity production is assessed. This research includes the fabrication of a H-shaped double chambered microbial fuel cell using two containers of 2 L each. Both the containers were connected with an agar salt bridge. The bioelectricity was produced from banana peel waste using potassium dichromate and potassium ferricyanide as catholyte and zinc rod and copper plate as electrodes. With potassium dichromate, the maximum value of voltage and current was found as 0.20 V and 0.112 mA respectively, while in case of potassium ferricyanide the maximum voltage and current obtained was 0.42 V and 0.55 mA respectively at 0.1 M concentration of catholyte. Substrates like glucose (10 % by weight) and sodium acetate (5 % by weight) was added in the banana peel slurry so as to make the microbial fuel cell more efficient. Further, impact of increase in potassium ferricyanide concentration from 0.1 to 0.5 M concentration on the generation of electricity was analysed and it was found that with increase in concentration of catholyte, voltage and current enhanced. The maximum voltage, current and power density found by increasing concentration of potassium ferricyanide from 0.1 to 0.5 M was 0.9 V, 3.36 mA and 1.055 W/m2. This study concludes that potassium ferricyanide is better oxidising agent than potassium dichromate. Microbial fuel cell can be a promising technology for bioelectricity production using banana peel waste.
Published Version
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