Effects of temperature and ferrous sulfate concentrations on the performance of microbial fuel cell

Abstract

The two-chambered microbial fuel cell (MFC) was operated in a batch mode, using enriched hydrogen-producing mixed bacteria as the anodic inoculum, artificial sucrose wastewater as the substrate (sucrose concentration 10.0 g/L) and potassium ferricyanide as cathodic electron acceptor. The performance of the MFC was analyzed under five different temperatures of 40, 35, 25, 20, and 15 °C, respectively. The microbial fuel cells (MFCs) which were operated at high operating temperatures (35 and 40 °C) had greater power generation than the other MFCs at start-up. However, only the MFC operated at 35 °C exhibiting stable and high power output over a long period. As for the effect of ferrous sulfate concentration on performance of the MFC, ferrous sulfate had efficiently accelerated influence on power generation during the initial operation period (0–9 d), but had inhibitive influence on power generation after 9 days of operation when the concentration increment of 50–400 mg/L in anolyte. The maximum increase was observed at the concentration increment of 50 mg/L in anolyte.