Abstract

High carbon footprints and limited availability of fossil fuels have motivated researchers to find alternatives to fossil fuels and the ways of producing them. Hydrogen is an alternative fuel and can be generated by electrohydrogenesis in a Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) using wastewater. At times, the microorganisms known as exoelectrogens are added externally to the wastewater in the form of biomass. Biomass serves as a parameter to optimize the yield of hydrogen. In this research work an attempt is made to understand the effect of the biomass concentration on the substrate utilization by the exoelectrogens and product formation. This research work also aims at studying the biochemical reaction kinetics and to identify a model that best describes the kinetics of the reactions involved, at the electrodes. It was observed that on increasing the biomass concentration from 0.7g/L to 1.4 g/L, the gas liberation rate increased from 9.42 ml/day to 15.33 ml/day and substrate utilization increased from 86.8% to 94.3%. This was in close agreement with the solution of the identified model. It was found out that the energy efficiency of MEC improved substantially by 30% and the energy demand was decreased by 38.5% when the initial biomass concentration was doubled.

Highlights

  • Energy is an indispensable yet exhaustible commodity in the modern world

  • Two experiments were conducted in double chamber Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) by varying initial biomass concentration and keeping all other parameters constant such as type of substrate, initial substrate concentration, S0 = 9.92 g/L, electrode type, electrode spacing (6 cm) and electrode potential (0.9 V)

  • It can be concluded that the product formation is directly proportional to the initial biomass concentration, in a dual chamber MEC with the graphite anode and stainless-steel cathode using sodium acetate substrate and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as microbes

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Summary

Introduction

Energy is an indispensable yet exhaustible commodity in the modern world. Conventional fuels, which are nonsustainable resources, are used to fulfill the majority of energy needs, which at some point may exhaust completely. There is immense potential in technologies which make use of wastewater to generate electricity or fuel. These technologies can produce power on-site for water treatment facilities in even the most isolated places around the world. They take developing nations a step forward towards providing clean water [1]. One such technology is the use of Microbial Electrochemical Systems. Electrochemical systems can be used as alternatives to recover energy from organic waste by catalyzing electrochemical reactions using microbes [2]

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