Polyelectrolytes/α-Fe2O3 modification of carbon cloth anode for dealing with food wastewater in microbial fuel cell

Abstract

In this paper, the layer-by-layer assembled polydimethyl diallyl ammonium chloride (PDADMAC), poly sodium-p-styrene sulfonate (PSS) and α-Fe2O3 modified carbon cloth (CC), nitric acid activated CC, blank CC were used as anodes in two-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) for dealing with food wastewater. The electricity production of microbial fuel cell increased dramatically after modification of the anode. When four double layers of PDADMAC and PSS and one layer α-Fe2O3 was assembled on CC (CC/(PDADMAC/PSS)4/α-Fe2O3), the highest current 0.48 mA and the highest power density 0.285 W/m2 were obtained. The electrode process of CC/(PDADMAC/PSS)4/α-Fe2O3 anode in MFC was controlled by the electron production step, while the blank CC anode was an electron diversion-controlled process. The high electricity production of nitric acid treated CC anode in MFC was due to the amino group after activation, which made microbes easy to anchor on the anode surface. The effect of polyelectrolytes and α-Fe2O3 on the performance improvement of MFC was due to both physical and chemical properties of the anode surface.