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Distillery wastewater is an important potential sources for electricity generation using Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) because of it has high content of organic waste and can be easily degraded. This study investigated the effect of feed pH and buffering conditions on electricity production and treatment efficiency using distillery wastewater as a substrate in MFC. The anodic chamber was operated with diluted distillery wastewater (4000 ± 20 mg COD/L) at various pH between 5.4 and 10 while the cathode chamber was maintained at pH 7.5. The MFC peak power density of 168 mW/m2 (580 mA/m2) with COD, color and TDS removal efficiency of 68.2, 26.4, and 15.4%, respectively was achieved at pH 8. Cyclic voltammetry revealed that an exoelectrogenic activity of microorganism was significantly influenced with respect to pH. The effect of buffering salts in the anolyte on MFC performance was also investigated. When the system operating with borate buffer, highest power density of 194.7 mW/m2 (624 mA/m2) at 100 Ω was achieved. The result indicated that alkaline condition (pH 8) and borate buffer was favored for obtaining maximum power generation and treatment efficiency from distillery wastewater in the MFC. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 663–668, 2018

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Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells or proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) is a clean, reliable, and efficient power source, especially in fuel cell electric vehicles for converting chemical energy stored in hydrogen and oxygen directly into electrical energy. Bipolar plates (BP) are vital components in PEMFC since they contribute significantly to fuel cells weight, volume, and cost. Traditionally BP was fabricated from high-density graphite material. However, the drawbacks of graphite plates like high volume, weight, and difficulty in machining lead to research in developing alternative materials for BP. Metals and composite materials have attracted attention as alternative materials in recent studies. Composite BP was preferred more due to corrosion problems and expensive coating requirements of metallic plates. This article presents a comprehensive review of current research on various materials used for developing polymer composite BP. The properties of polymer composite BP made of traditional and recently developed thermosetting or thermoplastic resins reinforced with conductive carbon-based fillers like expanded graphite, carbon black, carbon fiber, carbon nanotube and graphene are discussed. The challenges and future research trends on materials and processes for developing composite BP are also proposed.

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Development of economically viable cathode catalysts with practicability in the treatment of real effluents is one of the strenuous efforts among the multidisciplinary approaches in microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). Treatment of industrial effluents using this technology had resulted in simultaneous energy production in the form of hydrogen along with wastewater treatment, promoting both energy and environmental benefits. In this study, two metal oxides such as, Nickel Oxide (NiO) and Cobalt oxide (Co 3 O 4 ) were employed as the cathode catalyst using sugar industry effluent as the substrate for biohydrogen production in the MEC. The addition of NiO and Co 3 O 4 on nickel foam (NF) has demonstrated better hydrogen evolution performance than the control (uncoated) cathode. Electrochemical characterization of the modified cathodes revealed the improved capability analogous to the current density and hydrogen production rate (HPR) obtained in the experimentation. The best performance was achieved by NiO/NF with the maximum HPR of 3.39 ± 0.03 mmol/L/D, coloumbic efficiency of 58 ± 1.4%, hydrogen recovery of 27 ± 1.8% and COD removal efficiency of 52 ± 1.6% when operated with the applied voltage of 1.0 V. Hence, the potential of metal oxides was demonstrated for the candidature of efficient and economical cathode materials in MECs.