Sulfide as an alternative electron donor to glucose for power generation in mediator-less microbial fuel cell

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to investigate the power generation in a dual-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC). As one of the effective parameters, glucose concentration was studied in the range of 100–1000 mg/L. At the optimum concentration of 500 mg/L of glucose, maximum power generation was 186 mW/m². As an alternative, sulfide was used as an electron donor and maximum power output was 401 mW/m² at the concentration of 100 mg/L; which was more than twice of power produced using glucose. Moreover, sulfide removal efficiencies of 70%, 66%, 60%, and 64% were obtained when initial sulfide concentrations of 10, 20, 80, and 100 mg/L were used, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Electron donor
• glucose
• microbial fuel cell
• power generation
• substrate
• sulfide removal

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Biotechnology Research Center, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology (Babol, Iran) for the facilities provided to accomplish the present research.