Electrochemical and Power Performance of Microbial Fuel Cells: A Novel Numerical Approach

Abstract

In this work, a novel numerical approach for the simulation of electrochemical and power performance of Microbial Fuel Cells (LBM) for waste-water treatment is proposed. Our model is based on the accurate description of the MFC internal phenomena by means of the Lattice Boltzmann Method, a numerical approach based on an optimized formulation of Boltzmann's Kinetic Energy, which has been successfully applied to phenomena of technical and engineering interest in recent years. Employing a multi-component LBM solver, an accurate prediction of wastewater flow through the reactor chamber is achieved; within the LBM framework, a novel methodology has been developed to account for the different types of anode materials in MFC reactors (carbon fiber brushes or solid porous media). The direct conversion of organic substrate into e - and H + through microbs metabolism has been modeled according to dedicated experimental activity. The electrochemical characteristics of anode and cathode electrodes have been included and their effects on internal species transport and charge transfer is accurately simulated. The very good agreement between our results and the experiments in literature highlight the reliability and versatility of LBM applied to MFC implementations. Figure 1