Biological fuel cells with sulphide storage capacity

Abstract

Using bacteria that tolerate fairly high sodium sulphate concentrations and reduce sulphate and a coarse clay with buffering properties as solid electrolytes, biological fuel cells have been developed for providing electrical energy discontinuously. The biologically active anodes, which accumulate fuel, contained a metal hydroxide catalyst that was converted during the biological process into a metal sulphide catalyst and functioned in a solidified aqueous electrolyte that contained sodium sulphate. The active carbon or titanium cathodes employed were activated with cobalt oxide spinels, molybdenum/vanadium compounds or metal chelates. When employed in continuous service for discontinuous energy consumption, fuel cells were capable of being operated with humus constituents or sugar waste as fuel over a period of 5 years without malfunction and maintenance. Positive results were achieved in the purification of waste-water with a modified type of fuel cell in which the production of energy was not dominant.

The Influence of pH Spitting on the Internal Resistance in Microbial Fuel Cells

“…MFCs are devices that convert a portion of the chemical energy within organic matter to usable biogenic electrical energy with the help of bacteria as biocatalysts [2][3][4] . Separator is one of the most important components in MFCs.…”

Simultaneous electricity generation and sulfide removal via a dual chamber microbial fuel cell

“…The active microorganisms in the anaerobic anode compartment have the ability to use the organic matter which exists in the wastewater as a source of energy and generate protons and electrons, through which electricity can be recovered . Wastewater treatment by MFC was first done by Habermann and Pommer (1991). Wastewaters include various organic compounds, so they can be consumed in MFCs as fuel.…”

Electricity generation and brewery wastewater treatment from sequential anode-cathode microbial fuel cell

“…MFC is a device to treat wastewater and produce electricity at the same time (Bennetto, 1984;Habermann and Pommer, 1991). A variety of readily degradable compounds such as glucose and acetate, and various types of wastewater such as domestic, starching and paper recycling plant wastewater, have operated successfully as substrate in MFC (Melhuish et al, 2006;Freguia et al, 2007;Kargi and Eker, 2007;Liu and Li, 2007;Min and Angelidaki, 2008;Venkata-Mohan et al, 2008).…”