Development of a Consolidated Anaerobic Digester and Microbial Fuel Cell to Produce Biomethane and Electricity from Cellulosic Biomass Using Bovine Rumen Microorganisms

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are bioelectrochemical systems that convert chemical energy contained in organic matter into electrical energy by using the catalytic (metabolic) activity of living microorganisms. Mediator-less two chamber H-type MFCs were constructed in the current study, using dairy digester microbial population as anode inocula to convert finely ground pine tree (Avicel) at 2% (w/v) to electricity. MFCs were placed at 37˚C and after the circuit voltage was stabilized on d9, bovine rumen microorganisms cultured anaerobically for 48 hrs in cellulose broth media were added to treatment group of MFC at 1% v/v dosage. MFC power and current across an external resistor were measured daily for 10 d. At the end of incubation on d19 head space gas and anode chamber liquid solutions were collected and analyzed for total gas volume and composition, and volatile fatty acids, respectively. Addition of enriched rumen microorganisms to anaerobic anode chamber increased cellulose digestibility and increased both CO 2 and methane production; however, it decreased the methane to CO 2 ratio. Over the experimental period, electricity generation was increased with rumen microorganism addition, and power density normalized to anode surface area was 17.6 to 67.2 mW/m 2 with average of 36.0 mW/m 2 in treatment, while control How to cite this paper:

Lignocellulose, Cellulose and Lignin as Renewable Alternative Fuels for Direct Biomass Fuel Cells

“…[48] Thus, mixed cultures with a rumen inoculum were used in cellulose-fed MFCs, as both cellulose degrading and electron transferring agents at the same time. [33,38,41,43,46,47] The highest MPD value was 0.1070 mW cm À 2 , obtained using a mixed culture with a pre-acclimated inoculum in a singlechamber IC-fed MFC. [39] To improve power production, enzymes were used to increase the hydrolysis rate of cellulose.…”

“…The characteristics, operating conditions, and performance, in term of MPD, of some cellulose-fed MFCs are reported in Table 2. [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] Insoluble cellulose (IC), with few exceptions, [34,35,44] was used as the substrate. The most part of studies on cellulose-fed MFCs were carried out using the twochamber configuration.…”

Electrical generation and methane emission from an anoxic riverine sediment slurry treated by a two-chamber microbial fuel cell

“…We have found that the archaeal community showed a higher presence of Euryarchaeota at the phylum level, and at the genus level, Methanosaeta and Candidatus Methanoregula were abundant, followed by Methanobacterium (Zhu et al 2016). Hence, within MFCs, electricigens and methanogenic bacteria compete with each other for labile organic substrates, as well as proton transfer (Chung et al 2019;Xu et al 2021a, b). Higher power densities in each treatment group represent a higher activity of electricigens, more degradation of organic substrates and more efficient transfer of protons.…”

Rumen Inoculum Enhances Cathode Performance in Single-Chamber Air-Cathode Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Bioprospecting for EAB has been an important motivation for microbial research in MFCs. The search for new sources of EAB has included sludge from wastewater plants [ 6 , 7 ], sediments [ 8 , 9 ], rice paddy fields [ 10 ], forest soils [ 9 , 11 ], and rumen fluids [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Extreme environments have also been tested, taking inocula from salt marshes [ 17 ], saline microbial mats [ 9 ], salt lakes [ 18 ], tropical mangrove sediments [ 19 ], and acid mine drainage affected sites [ 20 ].…”

“…Previous MFC articles have reported on the use of rumen material as an inoculum. Rismani-Yazdi et al [ 14 ] and Chung et al [ 13 ] used H-type MFC reactors to demonstrate that rumen microorganisms can hydrolyze cellulose and produce electric energy.…”