Using rhodium as a cathode catalyst for enhancing performance of microbial fuel cell

Abstract

Rhodium with activated carbon as carbon base layer (Rh/AC) was exploited as an oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst to explore its applicability in microbial fuel cell (MFC). Four MFCs were fabricated using the Rh/AC catalyst, adopting varying Rh loadings of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg cm−2 and without Rh on carbon felt cathode in order to understand the optimum loading of this catalyst to enhance the performance of MFC. The participation of Rh/AC in ORR was confirmed by cyclic voltammetry and electron impedance spectroscopy analysis, which supported the enhanced charge transfer capacity of the cathode modified with the prepared catalysts. Volumetric power density of MFC was found to be improved by 2.6 times when Rh/AC was used as cathode catalyst (9.36 W m−3) at a loading of 2.0 mg cm−2 in comparison to the control MFC (3.65 W m−3) without Rh on the cathode. It was thus inferred that the increase in the Rh loading up to 2 mg cm−2 can improve the performance of MFC significantly.