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ABSTRACT
On a global perspective, organic wastes should be conceived as a precious resource that can be advantageous and in line with the waste-to-energy concept. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is an up-and-coming bio-electrochemical technology developed to efficiently generate bioelectricity from various organic wastes, using microorganisms as catalysts. Soil can be used to produce electrical energy in MFCs, which transform chemical energy from soil organic compounds into electricity through catalysis by soil-derived microorganisms. In soil/plant microbial fuel cells (SMFC/PMFC), the soil behaves as a nutrient-rich anodic medium, as a resource of electrochemically active microorganisms and as a proton exchange membrane (PEM). In addition to the advantages of SMFC technology, it faces practical obstacles such as low power and current density. SMFC/PMFC systems can be developed through an understanding of previous work by describing their working methods and the theoretical foundations on which they are built. Also, a wide variety of criteria that are likely to limit their performance can be identified by giving a brief description of their components. This study reviews the various components that make up the SMFC/PMFC systems and offers suggestions that allow to illuminate the various scientific locks that continue to limit the effectiveness of the technology. This review will provide a discussion of the mechanism of SMFC/PMFCs, which the researchers highlighted as one of the renewable energy conversion systems, and details about the conversion of some of the energy available in organic wastes by electrochemically active microorganisms.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Acknowledgements
This study was prepared by using the infrastructure of Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or nonprofit sectors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The manuscript is a review article so data sharing is not applicable to this article. No new data were created or analysed in this manuscript.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gamze Karanfil Kacmaz
Gamze Karanfil Kacmaz completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in Chemical Engineering and her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. Since 2012, she has been working in the fields of fuel cell systems (PEM fuel cells and microbial fuel cells) and energy efficiency in the Department of Energy Systems Engineering at Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University. She also continues to work on zero energy buildings and the application of soil-based microbial fuel cells to green roof systems.
Numan Eczacioglu
Numan Eczacioglu completed his undergraduate, graduate and doctorate degrees in Bioengineering. Since 2014, he has been working in the fields of tissue and protein engineering in the Department of Bioengineering at Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University.