Abstract
A cross‐laboratory study on microbial fuel cells (MFC) which involved different institutions around the world is presented. The study aims to assess the development of autochthone microbial pools enriched from domestic wastewater, cultivated in identical single‐chamber MFCs, operated in the same way, thereby approaching the idea of developing common standards for MFCs. The MFCs are inoculated with domestic wastewater in different geographic locations. The acclimation stage and, consequently, the startup time are longer or shorter depending on the inoculum, but all MFCs reach similar maximum power outputs (55±22 μW cm−2) and COD removal efficiencies (87±9 %), despite the diversity of the bacterial communities. It is inferred that the MFC performance starts when the syntrophic interaction of fermentative and electrogenic bacteria stabilizes under anaerobic conditions at the anode. The generated power is mostly limited by electrolytic conductivity, electrode overpotentials, and an unbalanced external resistance. The enriched microbial consortia, although composed of different bacterial groups, share similar functions both on the anode and the cathode of the different MFCs, resulting in similar electrochemical output.
Highlights
Microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) promise great innovation in different fields, such as environmental pollution remediation, low power generation, biosensing, synthesis of new products and medicine.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] the transfer from laboratory experimentation to field application is still challenging
The startup time for the microbial fuel cells (MFCs) run at UNM, TUB and UFZ were fast, approximately one cycle (Figure S1) and at cycle 2 there was no statistical difference between maximum voltages obtained by TUB, UNM and UFZ
The voltage produced by RSE-MFCs and CNR-MFCs was negligible, or very low, during the two-cycle acclimation period
Summary
Microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) promise great innovation in different fields, such as environmental pollution remediation, low power generation, biosensing, synthesis of new products and medicine.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] the transfer from laboratory experimentation to field application is still challenging. But not exhaustively, these technologies take advantage of a synergistic combination of well-known electrochemical and microbiological processes, needed to be mastered requires expertise of rarely a common background.[3] In the last decades, the study of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) as a model for primary MET greatly helped in acknowledging the necessity of a common knowledge and methodologies,[12] the spent efforts were only partially successful. Bretschger Aquacycl LLC 2180 Chablis Court, Suite 102, Escondido, CA 92029 (USA)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
