Cell For Electricity Generation Research Articles

A Novel V-Shaped Microbial Fuel Cell for Electricity Generation in Biodegrading Rice Straw Compost

A Novel V-Shaped Microbial Fuel Cell for Electricity Generation in Biodegrading Rice Straw Compost

Comparative Study of Microbial Fuel Cell for Electricity Generation by Enriched Exoelectron Generating Bacteria from Environmental Samples

Comparative Study of Microbial Fuel Cell for Electricity Generation by Enriched Exoelectron Generating Bacteria from Environmental Samples

Design and fabrication of microbial fuel cell for generation of electricity

Energy need has been increasing worldwide exponentially. At present global energy requirements are mostly dependent on the fossil fuels, which eventually lead to foreseeable depletion of limited fossil energy sources. More recently, generation of electricity using microbial fuel cells (MFC) is seemingly gaining importance in the research. MFC is a biochemical-catalyzed system which generates electrical energy through the oxidation of biodegradable organic matter in the presence of either fermentative bacteria or enzyme under mild reaction conditions (ambient temperature and pressure) and bacterial energy is directly converted to electrical energy and to close the cycle, protons migrate through a proton exchange membrane (PEM) from anode to cathode. The present work deals with the designing and fabrication of two-chambered salt bridge microbial fuel cell with specific dimension. The efficiency of fabricated MFCs was checked by variation in current produced on different days of operation of MFC and effect of using dextrose in anodic chamber of MFC. The MFC was operated for 7 days with or without dextrose as carbon source. It was observed that while running MFC without dextrose the maximum current obtained was 13.6 μA and maximum voltage obtained was 146.8 mV. However while using 5% dextrose solution in the anodic-chamber the maximum current and voltage obtained was 170 μA and 216 mV respectively.

Fast Lightoff of Millisecond Reactors

We show that the partial oxidation of CH4 to produce H2 and CO can be accomplished within ∼5 s starting at ambient temperature by igniting a stoichiometric feed of CH4 and air to rapidly heat a Rh on α-alumina catalyst to a temperature where catalytic ignition occurs. By measuring the temperature of the catalyst versus time, it is shown that syngas temperatures can be attained within a few seconds, and sampling of product gases shows that H2 and CO are produced in these times. A simple lumped model of the heating process shows that the high heat generation of combustion and the small mass of the monolith catalyst should be capable of producing these heating rates. This configuration should be useful for fast lightoff in hydrogen generation in transportation and stationary applications of fuel cells for electricity generation.

Performance analysis of a hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collector with integrated CPC troughs

In the present investigation a theoretical analysis has been presented for the modelling of thermal and electrical processes of a hybrid PV/T air heating collector coupled with a compound parabolic concentrator (CPC). In this design, several CPC troughs are combined in a single PV/T collector panel. The absorber of the hybrid PV/T collector under investigation consists of an array of solar cells for generation of electricity, while collector fluid circulating past the absorber provides useful thermal energy as in a conventional flat plate collector. In the analysis, it is assumed that solar cell efficiency can be represented by a linear decreasing function of its temperature. Energy balance equations have been developed for the various components of the system. Based on the developed analysis, both thermal and electrical performance of the system as a function of system design parameters are presented and discussed. Results have been presented to compare the performance of hybrid PV/T collector coupled with and without CPC. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

99/01270 Development of a low-cost oxy-hydrogen bio-fuel cell for generation of electricity using Nostoc as a source of hydrogen : Dawar, S. et al. Energy Research, 1998, 22, (12), 1019–1028

Urine deposition by grazing animals is known to induce large N2O emissions as a result of increased nitrification and denitrification in the soil. This is brought about by the increased N availability from the urine, in combination very likely also with increased organic C availability. Possible sources for C include the urine itself, increased solubility of soil C, lysis of microbial cells and leakage of C from scorched roots. The objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that: (i) urine deposition causes an increase in root-derived degradable C compounds in the soil, which (ii) fuel denitrification activity and N2O production. The study took advantage of carbon-13 pulse labelling the plant tissue combined with application of nitrogen-15 labelled synthetic urine as an attempt to identify the sources of N2O. Over a 6 weeks course, the CO2 evolved in response to urine application was equal to the quantity of organic C added. Immediately after the application, 87% of the respired CO2 appeared to be from the urine, and respiration of plant-derived C was temporarily decreased. The cumulated amount of respired 13C plant carbon, however, was unaltered by the urine treatment indicating that root death was not a significant source to available C. Nitrous oxide emissions accumulated to 7, 59, 142 and 77 mg N2O-N m−2, respectively, for control (0N), low urine N (LUN), high urine N (HUN) and high mineral N (HMN) treatments. Pair-wise comparisons indicated that HUN > LUN (P < 0.03), whereas HUN = HMN (P < 0.18). The N2O emission factors were 0.3% for the urine treatment, independent of urinary urea concentration and 0.15% for mineral N (NH4+). The 15N isotopic data indicated that denitrification of soil NO3− was the sole source for N2O production in the urine-affected soil after 12 days of incubation. The initial source of N2O could not be identified because of lack of ability to detect the soil 15NO3−. The source of N2O from added NH4+ was ambiguous since the isotopic signals of N2O, NH4+ and NO3− could not be discerned. Approximately, 50% of the urinary-N, independent of urea concentration, and 72% of the NH4+-was recovered after 6 weeks of incubation. This finding, in combination with the difference in the N2O losses, emphasizes the potential to control N-emissions from urine patches through dietary control of the urine N-content.