We propose a method to determine the optimal electrode size of sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs). Four SMFCs presented a proportional increase in the current to the electrode size of the MFCs at day 16. From the I–V curves of the SMFCs, four plots of current versus electrode size (I–Esize plots) were obtained, which displayed high R2 values ranging from 0.980 to 0.994. At day 47, however, V–I curves deviated in one of the four MFCs, such that the I–Esize plots obtained from the I–V curves were inappropriate for estimating the electrode size. We found that the curves of overvoltage against the current density (η–j curves) were comparable in the SMFCs, suggesting that the overvoltage is inversely proportional to the electrode size of the MFCs. The I–Esize plots corrected by using the η–j curves had high R2 values of over 0.978, indicating that the η–j curves can be used for estimating the electrode size when the working voltage to current density ratio is different in SMFCs.
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