Abstract
A Plant Microbial Fuel Cell (Plant-MFCs) has been studied both in the lab and in a field. So far, field studies were limited to a more conventional Plant-MFC design, which submerges the anode in the soil and places the cathode above the soil surface. However, for a large scale application a tubular Plant-MFC is considered more practical since it needs no topsoil excavation. In this study, 1 m length tubular design Plant-MFC was installed in triplicate in a paddy field located in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Plant-MFC reactors were operated for four growing seasons. The rice paddy was grown in a standard cultivation process without any additional treatment due to the reactor instalation. An online data acquisition using LoRa technology was developed to investigate the performance of the tubular Plant-MFC over the final whole rice paddy growing season. Overall, the four crop seasons, the Plant-MFC installation did not show a complete detrimental negative effect on rice paddy growth. Based on continuous data analysis during the fourth crop season, a continuous electricity generation was achieved during a wet period in the crop season. Electricity generation dynamics were observed before, during and after the wet periods that were explained by paddy field management. A maximum daily average density from the triplicate Plant-MFCs reached 9.6 mW/m2 plant growth area. In one crop season, 9.5–15 Wh/m2 electricity can be continuously generated at an average of 0.4 ± 0.1 mW per meter tube. The Plant-MFC also shows a potential to be used as a bio sensor, e.g., rain event indicator, during a dry period between the crop seasons.
Highlights
Plant microbial fuel cells (Plant-MFC) have drawn the attention of many researchers since their first proof of principle performance using Reed mannagrass (Glyceria maxima) [1]
In all four crop seasons, no negative effect was observed in the rice paddy growth due to the tubular plant-MFC installation
We can conclude that installing a plant-MFC in a paddy field is possible and it can generate electricity over several crop cycles
Summary
Plant microbial fuel cells (Plant-MFC) have drawn the attention of many researchers since their first proof of principle performance using Reed mannagrass (Glyceria maxima) [1]. In principle the Plant-MFC is based on the microbial fuel cell (MFC) in which electrochemically active bacteria (EAB) generate electrons from substrates (i.e., glucose or acetate) at the anode; the generated electrons are transferred to the anode electrode and flow via an external load to the cathode side. At the cathode, these electrons react with a final electron acceptor (i.e., oxygen) and protons [2].
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