Effect of operational parameters on cow dung mediated microbial fuel cell

Abstract

A new approach in the field of renewable energy is- the microbial fuel cells (MFCs). It is a technique to produce bioelectricity from available organic waste. It is helpful to fulfill the lighting requirements of rural areas. The aim of our research work is to construct twocompartment system and to study various parameters like performance of the different combination of electrodes, optimization of pH and temperature. In this study, using bacteria as biocatalyst, the naturally found cow dung was used to generate an open circuit voltage of 0.84 ± 0.010 V and a current of 3.51 ± 0.620 mA. Optimization of various parameters shows that among different temperature range, 37°C temperature gives the highest voltage production of 0.84 ± 0.091 V and current of 3.08 ± 0.512 mA. In case of pH there are not any significant changes were found when pH range is changed. Although, pH 4.0 is found to be more efficient as it produces voltage of 0.90 ± 0.045 V and current of 4.85 ± 0.587 mA. Furthermore, three electrogenic bacterial strains were isolated and studied for their electrogenic properties individually and among them CDB-3 was found best in their performance.

Citation

Sethia, K., Kaushik, A., Jadhav, S.K. and Quraishi, A. (2015), "Effect of operational parameters on cow dung mediated microbial fuel cell", World Journal of Engineering, Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 541-550. https://doi.org/10.1260/1708-5284.12.6.541