Membraneless microbial biofuel cell for municipal waste water treatment

Abstract

Microbial biofuel cell is the promising technology that gives possibilities to generate electricity by degradation of organic contaminations. Thus, this technology became very perspective for municipal waste water treatment to minimize energy consumption of waste water treatment plants. The main limitations of microbial biofuel cell application are related with high cost of membranes and electrodes materials. Absence of membrane and application of cheap materials with low conductivity and low surface area usually leads to decreasing of power output. In this paper we present membraneless microbial fuel cell (MFC) with cheap conductive electrodes that can be applied in future for waste water treatment. Gluconobacter Oxydans VKM V-1280 strain from All-Russian Collection of Microorganisms was used as biocatalyzer for anode. Graphite was applied as electrode material. Immobilization was provided by using mixture of poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) and poly (ethyleneglycol) diglycidyl ether (PEGDE). Experiments were provided by using synthetic analog of municipal waste water. No additional chemical mediator was applied. Power output was 1.43 mcW/sm2. Electrodes were stable during biofuel cell (BFC) operation. Thus, it was demonstrated that it is possible to apply membraneless MFC for municipal waste water treatment.