Enhancing extracellular electron transfer and power generation in microbial fuel cell using a ferrocene-based conjugated oligoelectrolyte

Abstract

The anode compartment, as an electron generation station, determines the power performance and contaminant removal in microbial fuel cell (MFC). However, the extracellular electron transfer (EET) process limits bioelectricity generation. In this work, the role of conjugated oligoelectrolytes (COEs) on catalyzing bacterial activity toward bio-current production was investigated. In this regard, two COEs, namely [4-[1-(3-methylimidazolium chloride)]butyl] ferrocene (MIF+) and Bis [4-[1-(3-methylimidazolium chloride)]butyl] ferrocene (BMIF+) were synthesized and the increases in anodic current output were probed through MFC device. The electrochemical analyses revealed excellent performance in bio-current production for BMIF+ stained cells. The tolerance threshold of COEs stained cells for different concentrations of COEs was investigated using chronoamperometry (CA) test. Additionally, the power performance of MFC exhibited the highest value of 115.46 mW m−2 for the BMIF+ stained cells in comparison with MIF+ stained cells (73.12 mW m−2) and unstained cells (25.8 mW m−2). The results demonstrated that spiking cells' membranes with COEs is a meaningful strategy to facilitate the EET process and produce bioelectricity.