The Effect of Different Pretreatment of Chicken Manure for Electricity Generation in Membrane-Less Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

The need for energy resources is growing all the time, which means that more fossil fuels are needed to provide them. People prefer to consume chicken as a source of protein, and this creates an abundance of waste. Thus, microbial fuel cells represent a new technological approach with the potential to generate electricity through the action of electrogenic bacteria toward chicken manure, while reducing the abundance of chicken manure. This study investigated the effect of different pretreatment (thermal, alkaline, and sonication pretreatment) of chicken manure to improve the performance of a membrane-less microbial fuel cell (ML-MFC). Statistical response surface methodology (RSM) through a central composite design (CCD) under a quadratic model was conducted for optimization of the ML-MFC performance focusing on the COD removal efficiency (R2 = 0.8917), biomass (R2 = 0.9101), and power density response (R2 = 0.8794). The study demonstrated that the highest COD removal (80.68%), biomass (7.8539 mg/L), and power density (220 mW/m2) were obtained when the pretreatment conditions were 140 °C, 20 kHz, and pH 10. The polarization curve of the best condition of ML-MFC was plotted to classify the behavior of the ML-MFC. The kinetic growth of Bacillus subtillis (BS) showed that, in treated chicken manure, the specific growth rate µ = 0.20 h−1 and doubling time Td = 3.43 h, whereas, in untreated chicken manure, µ = 0.11 h−1 and Td = 6.08.