High Flux Layer by Layer Polyelectrolyte FO Membrane: Toward Enhanced Performance for Osmotic Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

Combination of microbial fuel cell (MFC) and forward osmosis (FO) is called an osmotic microbial fuel cell (OMFC). Because of the high cost of FO membranes, for the first time laboratory made FO membrane has been used in OMFC. This study investigates the performance of FO membrane in OMFC treating glucose as substrate and 2M NaCl as draw solution. The FO membrane was able to achieve 18.43 lm−2 h−1 (LMH) and for fouled FO membrane it was 15.26 lm−2 h−1. The OMFC constantly produced bioelectricity and achieved maximum current density 139.52 A/m3 and power density 27.38 W/m3. The energy production of OMFC was 0.438 kWh/m3.