Neutral Red Immobilized Graphite Felt Anodic Microbial Fuel Cell for Wastewater Treatment and Generation of Electricity

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) can be a great demand for waste water treatment in future. Alternatively, the increasing demand of energy can be fulfilled by this technique in the future if the performance of MFC is improved. In this paper, a MFC was constructed by using graphite felt immobilized with neutral red as anode and a platinum coated platinum wire as cathode. Analyte used was municipal wastewater and catholyte was phosphate buffer of pH 7. The wastewater contained 1.457 mg/l of Ammonical Nitrogen, 33.363 mg/l of COD, 0.537 mg/l of total Phosphorus, 0.105 mg/l of reducing sugar and 0.139 mg/l of Nitrite nitrogen. The mixed culture of organism dominantly present in the wastewater was used in MFC. The result was found to be effective when cellulose acetate was used as membrane compared to the Nafion membrane. The COD of wastewater was reduced by 69.96% when MFC was run for five days with cellulose acetate membrane. The maximum power generated was 24.45 W/m3 when 1% H2O2 was supplied as a source of oxygen in the cathode compartment. The result indicates microbial fuel cell technology to be a new approach for wastewater treatment as it produces sustainable clean energy by minimizing COD level.