Energy recovery prospects of fuel cell technologies: sustainability and bioremediation

ABSTRACT

Energy for sustainable development through utilisation of low carbon footprint sources can benefit a nation both economically and prevent detrimental damage to the environment at the same time. Fuel cell technologies owing to their non-combustion method of power generation, with minimum emissions, have been widely used in various utility sectors; certain type of fuel cells, namely, microbial fuel cells or MFCs, can play a vital role to serve this purpose due to their potential for energy recovery from waste through electrochemically active biofilms. In most cases, MFCs has been explored to generate bioelectricity or modified to produce hydrogen. In this review, two other areas of MFC exploration are investigated; first is its utilisation as a remote source of power using organic matter in sediments, in marine and land environment, while the second application is as a tool for bioremediation, which includes degradation of both organic and inorganic pollutants; the implications for this are that MFCs can play a crucial role in wasteland reclamation.

KEYWORDS:

• MFCs
• bioremediation
• power
• anode
• substrates

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Research Initiative for Students in Engineering (RISE) scheme at University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, and would like to acknowledge the work carried out at separate capacities by our student researchers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.