Microbial Fuel Cell—A Review

Abstract

AbstractMicrobial fuel cell (MFC) is a newly emerged technology whose main aim is to produce green energy from organic waste materials that is healthy for the environment. It is one of the best renewable energy sources to produce electricity from waste-sewage water, municipal solid waste, industrial and agricultural waste, etc. When sewage water is directly discharged into the water bodies, it causes eutrophication and degrades the water quality. So, using wastewater as a source of energy will decrease the amount of pollutants which will be released in the water bodies. MFC is an electrochemical cell which converts the organic and inorganic waste materials into electricity with the help of microorganisms. The performance of an MFC depends on various design and operational parameters. The main objective of this paper is to review various substrates, anode and cathode electrodes, the effect of different separators on the MFC output, also to understand the MFC performance under different operational conditions. In case of dual chamber MFC, performance significantly shows variation when electrode spacing is reduced. Use of 4-layered PTFE diffusion layer in carbon cloth cathode for single-chamber MFC shows improvement in performance. Variation of temperature and pH has great impact on MFC performance. When acetate and kitchen waste is used as substrate in single chamber and dual chamber MFC, respectively, yields maximum power density. This paper is aimed to give the readers a brief understanding on this emerging technology, which is being studied to a great extent in recent years.KeywordsCoulombic efficiencyCurrent densityMicrobial fuel cellPower density