Integration of Upscaled Microbial Fuel Cells in Real Municipal Sewage Plants

Muddemann, Thorben; Haupt, Dennis; Silva, Leandro Gomes Silva e.; Jiang, Bolong; Kunz, Ulrich; Bormann, H.; Niedermeiser, Michael; Schlaefer, Ottmar; Sievers, Michael

doi:10.1149/07711.1053ecst

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…It can be observed that nowadays, about 60 % of the studies related to MFCs use synthetic substrates, mainly glucose and acetate. Synthetic wastewater is frequently employed in MFCs, but its operation with real municipal and industrial wastewaters has also been tested satisfactorily . About 40 % of the studies use natural substrates, the sources of which show great diversity: raw domestic wastewater (40 %), marine sediments (25 %), and sewage sludge (10 %).…”

Section: Scale‐up Of Mfcs: What Are the Technology Facts And Limitatimentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical View of Microbial Fuel Cells: What Is the Next Stage?

et al. 2018

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Am icrobialf uel cell (MFC)i saheterogeneousr eactor in which redox reactions take place at the interfacesb etween electron conductors (electrodes) and ion conductors (electrolyte). The oxidation occurs on the anode surface, whereas the reduction takes place on the cathode. Thee lectrolyte allows the transport of ions in each half-cell, from the anode to the cathode and vice versa. The electric current flows from the anode to the cathode through an external circuit, because of the potential differencep roduced betweenb oth electrodes (E). This cell voltage is relatedt ot he Gibbs' free energy in Equation (1), in which n is the number of exchanged electrons and F is the Faraday constant. DG ¼ ÀnFE ð1ÞIf G is lower than 0( DG < 0), the processp roceeds spontaneously andt he cell transforms the energy produced by as pontaneous chemical reactioni nto electrical energy.T he most im-portant cellsa re those developed for transforming energy as batteries( discontinuouse lectrochemical cells),r edox flow batteries andr echargeableb atteries (semicontinuouse lectrochemicalcells), andfuelcells (continuouselectrochemicalcells).Despite the great variety of applications of batteries nowadays, the development of fuel cells is more interesting from a researchp erspective because there are many weaknesses that have yet to be solved, in particular those related with the catalysts used to transform the fuel into electricity.Because of that, during the last few decades, the use of bacteria as catalysts has gained special attention in this field, and this has led to the concept of MFCs. The uniqueness of biocatalysts is that the catalytic efficiency dependso nt he microbial interactions in the community among them and with the electrodeso fafuel cell. These types of bacteria are called exoelectrogens. [1] The positive point is that these types of microorganisms (also called bioelectrogenic microorganisms) are not limited to the use of the same simplef uels as inorganic catalysts, as they can also face the oxidation of more complexf uels. [2] One of the cheapest fuels is wastewater.For this reason, microbial fuel cells are frequently related to the treatment of wastewater, [3] but this is not their only application.To understand how aM FC works, the scheme for at ypical MFC is showninFigure 1. The MFC shown consists of two electrodic chambers (anodic and cathodic) and as emipermeable membrane betweent he electrodes. Bacteria oxidize the substrate in the anodic chamber to generate protons and other metabolic products, generallyC O 2 .T he electrons are collected in the anode and travel to the cathode through an external electricalc ircuit, whereas protons pass from the anode to the cathode through the membrane. [2] Oncee lectrons and protons Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have garnered interestf rom the scientific community since the beginning of this century and this has caused ac onsiderable increase in the scientific production of MFCs. However,t he ability of MFCs to generate power has not increased considerably within this timeframe....

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Section: Scale‐up Of Mfcs: What Are the Technology Facts And Limitatimentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical View of Microbial Fuel Cells: What Is the Next Stage?

et al. 2018

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“…The upscaling to higher m 3 volumes has so far been solved by the modular setup of MFCs that work independently from one another. This approach has enabled pilot plants to treat working volumes from 686 up to 1000 L . A conversion from the pilot scale to the industrial scale with reactors based solely on electroactive microorganisms has not been performed until recently, since the power generation is not sufficient yet , .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for the Targeted Improvement of Anodic Electron Transfer in Microbial Fuel Cells

et al. 2019

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The concept of the microbial fuel cell (MFC) has existed for over 100 years, but only within the last decade, the practical implementation has become conceivable due to microbial and technical progress. This review article presents available strategies to increase the limiting extracellular electron transfer (EET) in the anode space of MFCs. Therefore, organism‐based improvements as well as the effects of (bio–)polymers and redox mediators on ETT will be demonstrated.

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“…Newer studies focus on more complex MnO2-based The net power generation of MFCs is rather low, especially due to the performance-limiting cathode [9][10][11][12]. To overcome this bottleneck, large electrode surfaces [13], improved cathode manufacturing methods, and especially scalable methods are needed [5]. In the laboratory, cathodes for MFCs are often prepared by brushing [9,[14][15][16][17][18], dipping [19], rolling [20], pressing [21], doctor blading [12], spin coating [22], or electro deposition [19,23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation and Improvement of Scalable Oxygen Reducing Cathodes for Microbial Fuel Cells by Spray Coating

Muddemann

Haupt²,

Jiang

et al. 2019

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This contribution describes the effect of the quality of the catalyst coating of cathodes for wastewater treatment by microbial fuel cells (MFC). The increase in coating quality led to a strong increase in MFC performance in terms of peak power density and long-term stability. This more uniform coating was realized by an airbrush coating method for applying a self-developed polymeric solution containing different catalysts (MnO 2 , MoS 2 , Co 3 O 4 ). In addition to the possible automation of the presented coating, this method did not require a calcination step. A cathode coated with catalysts, for instance, MnO 2 /MoS 2 (weight ratio 2:1), by airbrush method reached a peak and long-term power density of 320 and 200-240 mW/m 2 , respectively, in a two-chamber MFC. The long-term performance was approximately three times higher than a cathode with the same catalyst system but coated with the former paintbrush method on a smaller cathode surface area. This extraordinary increase in MFC performance confirmed the high impact of catalyst coating quality, which could be stronger than variations in catalyst concentration and composition, as well as in cathode surface area.

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Integration of Upscaled Microbial Fuel Cells in Real Municipal Sewage Plants

Cited by 7 publications

References 39 publications

A Critical View of Microbial Fuel Cells: What Is the Next Stage?

A Critical View of Microbial Fuel Cells: What Is the Next Stage?

Strategies for the Targeted Improvement of Anodic Electron Transfer in Microbial Fuel Cells

Investigation and Improvement of Scalable Oxygen Reducing Cathodes for Microbial Fuel Cells by Spray Coating

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