Microbial fuel cells and microbial electrolysis cells for the production of bioelectricity and biomaterials

Abstract

Today's global energy crisis requires a multifaceted solution. Bioenergy is an important part of the solution. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology stands out as an attractive potential technology in bioenergy. MFCs can convert energy stored in organic matter directly into bioelectricity. MFCs can also be operated in the electrolysis mode as microbial electrolysis cells to produce bioproducts such as hydrogen and ethanol. Various wastewaters containing low-grade organic carbons that are otherwise unutilized can be used as feed streams for MFCs. Despite major advances in the past decade, further improvements in MFC power output and cost reduction are needed for MFCs to be practical. This paper analysed MFC operating principles using bioenergetics and bioelectrochemistry. Several major issues were explored to improve the MFC performance. An emphasis was placed on the use of catalytic materials for MFC electrodes. Recent advances in the production of various biomaterials using MFCs were also investigated.

Keywords:

• microbial fuel cell
• microbial electrolysis cell
• bioelectrochemistry
• electron transfer
• wastewater treatment

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51178225 and 21273120), GEFC09–12, NCET-08-0296 and Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Original Agro-environment Quality of Ministry of Agriculture and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Agro-environment and Agro-product Safety (2012-SZJJ-CYM).