Comparative study of electricity production and treatment of different wastewater using microbial fuel cell (MFC)

Abstract

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is the advancement of science that aims at utilizing the oxidizing potential of bacteria for wastewater treatment and production of elec- tricity. Salt bridge is the economic alternative to highly priced proton-exchange membrane in the construction of an MFC. By altering the concentration of agarose in the fabrication of salt bridge, the performance of various double-chambered MFCs was observed using hostel sew- age wastewater as the substrate. Agarose concentration ranging from 7 to 12 % was used for the study, and opti- mum concentration was observed to be 10 % as it showed maximum current production of 0.97 mA at a voltage of 0.95 V after 528 h of operation from the time of the initial experimental setup. The maximum power density obtained was 78.25 mW/m 2 and the corresponding current density was 82.37 mA/m 2 . A 75.9 % reduction in chemical oxygen demand was obtained in 10 % agarose concentration salt- bridge MFC. All experiments were performed in triplicate and the results are discussed in this research paper.