Single chamber stackable microbial fuel cell with air cathode

FUEL 132

Jong-In Han, jihan@rpi.edu and Bin Wang, wangb3@rpi.edu. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, JEC5026, Troy, NY 12180-3590
A single chamber stackable microbial fuel cell with consisting of four MFC units was constructed for organic matter biodegradation and electricity production. When the reactor was maintained in batch mode with sodium acetate (600mg/L) as carbon source, all MFC units had similar polarization curve and produced maximum power around 0.87 mW/unit. Cathode charge transfer was found to be the more important limiting factor than anode charge transfer. Parallel connection of all units produced maximum power of 3.12 mW/reactor (7.61 W/m3); however, series connection caused energy losses and could only produce maximum power density of 2.20 mW/reactor (5.36 W/m3). When the reactor was maintained in continues mode (0.7mL/min, 128 mg/L COD in influent), the overall COD removal rate was 73.4%. Under this condition, both voltage output of MFC units and COD decreased along the flow path, indicating heterogeneous distribution of organic matters.