Long-Term Performance of Primary and Secondary Electroactive Biofilms Using Layered Corrugated Carbon Electrodes

Baudler, André; Riedl, Sebastian; Schröder, Uwe

doi:10.3389/fenrg.2014.00030

Cited by 49 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Such a difference in the primary bioanode performance was also observed with carbon cloth electrodes and was not linked to the electrode material. On average, the electrocatalytic improvement from the primary to the secondary bioanode corresponded to a multiplication factor of 2, as already reported using a synthetic medium and acetate as substrate [16,18].…”

Section: Electrochemical Characteristicssupporting

confidence: 84%

Two-dimensional carbon cloth and three-dimensional carbon felt perform similarly to form bioanode fed with food waste

Blanchet

Erable

Solan

et al. 2016

Electrochemistry Communications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

OATAO is an open access repository that collects the work of Toulouse researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible. a b s t r a c tTwo-dimensional carbon cloth and three-dimensional carbon felt were compared for their capacity to form bioanodes for food waste treatment. Wastewater was used as the dilution medium instead of a synthetic solution to be close to industrial conditions. In both cases, microbial cells were mainly wrapped around the fibers of the electrodes. The biofilms were around 80-120 μm thick with a 39.3% microbial volume ratio on carbon cloths. On carbon felt, the biofilms showed a lower microbial volume ratio of 16.3% on the upper layers but with a penetration depth of 200-800 μm. The biofilm patterns were different but they resulted in similar current density, around 3.5 A/m 2 .When chemically rich media have to be implemented, 2D cloth offers a worthwhile solution that can equal 3D porous materials.

show abstract

Section: Electrochemical Characteristicssupporting

confidence: 84%

Two-dimensional carbon cloth and three-dimensional carbon felt perform similarly to form bioanode fed with food waste

Blanchet

Erable

Solan

et al. 2016

Electrochemistry Communications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…CE augmentation was also observable after the anode renewal at day 35 showing the reproducibility of this phenomenon. These observations are supported by previous studies showing better electrochemical performance of MFCs for which anode was inoculated using the biofilm harvested from the anode of an existing MFC [27,[45][46][47][48]. For instance, Liu et al [27] developed a procedure to increase the bioelectrochemical activity of an acetate fed anodic biofilm which consists in using a primary biofilm formed from wastewater to inoculate directly a new clean graphite electrode to develop a secondary biofilm.…”

Section: Electrochemical Performancessupporting

confidence: 66%

“…Confocal observations clearly revealed an important colonization of carbon cloth for days 23,35,48,55. Microbes were in close association with carbon cloth fibers and irregularly covered the carbon cloth surface.…”

Section: Microbial Community Analysismentioning

confidence: 94%

“…They showed that the bioelectrocatalytic current density of a MFC can be doubled from 250 μA/cm 2 to 500 μA/cm 2 between the primary and the secondary anodic biofilm. Similarly, using layered corrugated carbon as anode material, Baudler et al [48] reported that the bioelectrocatalytic activity of secondary biofilms is about two times higher (6.7 mA/cm 2 ) than that of primary biofilms (3 mA/cm 2 ). In our case, the procedure was used to start the BES leading to high current densities and coulombic efficiencies, and then repeated three times in the course of the experiment leading to a restoration of the initial performance level for all the newly formed bioanodes.…”

Section: Electrochemical Performancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Successive bioanode regenerations to maintain efficient current production from biowaste

Bridier

Quéméner

Bureau

et al. 2015

Bioelectrochemistry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The long-term operation of efficient bioanodes supplied with waste-derived organics is a key challenge for using bioelectrochemical systems as a waste valorization technology. Here, we describe a simple procedure that allowed maintaining highly efficient bioanodes supplied with biowaste. Current densities up to 14.8 A/m(2) were obtained with more than 40% of the electrons introduced as biowaste being recovered in the electrical circuit. Three fed-batch reactors were started at different biowaste loading rates. A decline of coulombic efficiencies between 22 and 31% was recorded depending on the reactor over the first 3 weeks of operation. A renewal procedure of the anode was thereafter implemented, which led to a recovery of initial performances. The second and the third renewal, allowed maintaining stable high level performances with coulombic efficiency of approximately 40% over at least 3 weeks. Electroactive biofilm dynamics were monitored using 16S rRNA-gene amplicon sequencing. Retrieved sequences were dominated by Geobacter sulfurreducens-related reads (37% of total sequences), which proportion however varied along the experiment. Interestingly, sequences affiliated to various Bacteroidetes groups were also abundant, suggesting an adaptation of the anodic biofilm to the degradation of biowaste through metabolic interactions between microbial community members.

show abstract

“…An improved current generation was also not observed for this experiment, as these cells showed a current output of only 4.74 ± 0.19 μA cm −2 . The current densities when using human feces and urine as substrate are well below these found for corrugated cardboard based biofilm anodes fed with acetate, 25,26 which clearly shows that not the low-cost electrode material itself is the bottleneck.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 83%

eLatrine: Lessons Learned from the Development of a Low-Tech MFC Based on Cardboard Electrodes for the Treatment of Human Feces

Kretzschmar

Riedl

Brown

et al. 2016

J. Electrochem. Soc.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of the study was to provide experimental proof-of-concept that stand-alone power generation based on microbial fuel cells (MFCs) operated using human feces as the substrate can be achieved. A pit latrine that is typically employed for decentralized treatment of human feces e.g. in regions without access to centralized wastewater infrastructures was installed as sampling site. It was the philosophy that the components, i.e. anodes and cathodes, used in the MFCs had to be based on low-cost precursors. This was achieved by recycling common household materials or waste products and a low-tech/cost production method was developed to convert them into usable electrodes. It is demonstrated that i) pre-tests on using an equivalent to vent-air from ovens or fire-places allowed a low-tech carbonization of e.g. corrugated cardboard to electrode materials; ii) that anodes based on corrugated cardboard can be operated using real human feces as substrate, nevertheless, providing only low current densities (15.09 ± 5.18 μA cm −2 ) and iii) cathodes -with nitrogen functionalities derived from (artificial) urine -based on corrugated cardboard or as an alternative jeans cloth show a good oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. Introducing nitrogen containing surface moieties to the cathode surface increased the ORR up to factor 5 (chronoamperometry at 0 V vs. Ag/AgCl sat. KCl) compared to the untreated reference. Most importantly, highly valuable lessons for exploiting real and highly heterogeneous and dense substrates like human feces in microbial electrochemical technologies were learned. In 2015 the United Nations proposed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030.1 Among these are for instance "Good health and well-being", "Clean water and sanitation", "Affordable and clean energy" as well as "Sustainable cities and communities". Hence, sanitation and concurrently treat of waste is a key challenge, as it covers technical as well as socio-economic and health related issues.2,3 Wastewater treatment facilities and related infrastructure, e.g. as typically installed in the USA or Europe, can be a significant sink for energy and resources, 4-6 which are needed for construction, maintenance, especially of the sewer system, and operation. 7At the same time an estimated 2.4 billion people, or approx. 33 % of the world population, do not have access to such infrastructure. For this share of the world's population using simple solutions such as pit latrines can already be advantageous in terms of hygiene and security when compared to open defecation.2,3 Therefore decentralized sanitation systems seem advantageous in developing regions with no or only very little existing infrastructure.Waste and wastewaters have gradually become perceived not as sinks of chemicals and energy but as re-sources thereof. In this light microbial electrochemical technologies (MET) 8 and especially microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are considered to be a highly promising solution.6 MFCs are primary microbial electrochemical technologies...

show abstract

Long-Term Performance of Primary and Secondary Electroactive Biofilms Using Layered Corrugated Carbon Electrodes

Cited by 49 publications

References 27 publications

Two-dimensional carbon cloth and three-dimensional carbon felt perform similarly to form bioanode fed with food waste

Two-dimensional carbon cloth and three-dimensional carbon felt perform similarly to form bioanode fed with food waste

Successive bioanode regenerations to maintain efficient current production from biowaste

eLatrine: Lessons Learned from the Development of a Low-Tech MFC Based on Cardboard Electrodes for the Treatment of Human Feces

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About