Electricity Generation by Single- and Double Chamber Membrane-Less Microbial Fuel Cells (MLMFCS)

Abstract

Waste biomass is a cheap and relatively abundant source of microbes capable of producing electri-cal current. Rapidly developing microbial electrochemical technologies, such as microbial fuel cells, are part of a diverse platform of future sustainable energy. Application of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) may represent a completely new approach in production of sustainable clean energy. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are not yet commercialized but they show great promise as a method of power production. The power produced by these cells is currently limited, primarily due to high internal (ohmic) resistance. There are two main components of the fuel cell; cathode and anode compartments along with a cation specific membrane. In the anode compartment, microorganism oxidizes substrates which generate electrons and protons. Electrons are then transferred to the cathode compartment via an external electric circuit. Protons are transferred to the cathode com-partment through the cation specific membrane like Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) which is very expensive. In this study, a successful attempt has been made to fabricate single and double chamber Membrane-Less-Microbial-Fuel-Cells (MLMFCs) which are capable to give COD reduc-tion greater than 93 percent, with maximum power production 6 W/m².