Generation of electricity from tannery effluent using waste derived electrodes in microbial fuel cell

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is one of the promising technologies for converting organic waste matters and renewable biomass into energy. The microorganisms, the availability and type of substrate, the proton-conducting material, the electrode material, the anode and cathode catalyst, the spacing between electrodes and MFC design are all elements that impact the operation of MFC. Each of these variables has its own set of possibilities for MFC system improvement. Developments in MFC design induce more efficient power production, which will be largely determined by the electrode type. Biochar electrodes confer an opportunity to decrease the MFC cost and improve the efficiency. In view of these possibilities, this research was to develop an MFC system based on biochar electrodes. The properties of waste coconut shell biochar electrodes and their influence of power production was investigated in this study. In this research, Double chamber and#8213;Hand#8214; type configured MFC reactor was fabricated to analyze the bioenergy generation from tannery effluent and aims on the ways and means of reducing the cost of electrodes and decreasing environment pollution using waste materials. Coconut Shell (CS) materials were used for synthesizing electrodes through carbonization and testing it as the anode in the MFC. The electrodes were synthesized by using activated coconut shell wastes blended with various metals such as Silicon (Si0.2 and Si0.4), Zinc (Zn0.2 and Zn0.4), and Copper (Cu0.2 and Cu0.4) with 20% and 40%. Further, nafion membranes were used to observe the power production in MFC. The synthesized electrode materials were characterized using different techniques to analyze their feasibility for their usage as electrodes. newline Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is one of the promising technologies for converting organic waste matters and renewable biomass into energy.