Compost Soil Microbial Fuel Cell to Generate Power using Urea as Fuel

Abstract

the acute problem of eutrophication increasing in the environment is due to the increase of industrial wastewater, synthetic nitrogen, urine, and urea. this pollutes groundwater, soil and creates a danger to aquatic life. therefore, it is advantageous to use these waste materials in the form of urea as fuel to generate power using Microbial fuel cell (Mfc). in this work, we studied the compost soil Mfc(cSMfc) unlike typical Mfc with urea from the compost as fuel and graphite as a functional electrode. the electrochemical techniques such as cyclic Voltammetry, chronoamperometry are used to characterise CSMFC. It is observed that the CSMFC in which the compost consists of urea concertation of 0.5 g/ml produces maximum power. Moreover, iV measurement is carried out using polarization curves in order to study its sustainability and scalability. Bacterial studies were also playing a significant role in power generation. the sustainability study revealed that urea is consumed in cSMfc to generate power. this study confirmed that urea has a profound effect on the power generation from the CSMFC. Our focus is to get power from the soil processes in future by using waste like urine, industrial wastewater, which contains much amount of urea. The rapid increase in power consumption and various environmental issues have compelled the research community to identify new sources of renewable energy. It is pertinent to discover new renewable resources 1,4. In this pursuit, energy storage devices such as fuel cells, which are mostly powered by organic compounds, can be useful tools. Urea Fuel cells available in the liquid state are not sustainable and portable 1. However, in soil-based Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) use natural bacteria or secreted enzymes to break down the fuel, typically to generate electricity from the soil. In MFCs, bacteria and enzymes to act as biocatalysts to produce electricity 1,2. Until now the reported liquid state MFCs associated with safety concerns mainly related to toxicity, shifting, leakage, handling and degrading fastly in the liquid state. Moreover, additional precautions are needed to prevent exposure to gaseous NH 3 due to volatilisation of the liquid fuel. Therefore, the solid-state materials like soil compost are preferred to overcome the risk, as mentioned above for stable behaviour. Among element of urine, urea is a suitable fuel for MFCs. It is an advantage for the soil-based system to go through the natural processes by following nitrification and denitrification in the nitrogen cycle by ammonification to nitrogen (N 2) formation in soil 3. The soil itself is a source of many bacteria and microorganisms in aerobic and anaerobic forms 4-8. Urea and ammonium are sources of nitrogen, and the density of urea is higher as compared to other nitrogen sources 2,3,9. Urea when comes in contact with the soil while hydrolysis releases urease enzymes working as a catalyst with bacteria. Therefore, soil systems can be a neutral medium to transport electrons and protons easily in an eco-friendly medium fo...

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“…The transferred energy made the "NCTU" LED array light up [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] devices using different components, substrates, operation conditions, or electricigens, etc. 11,[60][61][62][63][64] As shown in Table S2, the average power density (16.5 μW/cm 2 ) of this apparatus was not particularly prominent, however, it presented potential for stable and remarkably durable for long-term MFC operation (90 days, Figure 5).…”

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