Bio-energy generation in an affordable, single-chamber microbial fuel cell integrated with adsorption hybrid system: effects of temperature and comparison study

ABSTRACT

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) integrated with adsorption system (MFC-AHS) is tested under various operating temperatures with palm oil mill effluent as the substrate. The optimum operating temperature for such system is found to be at ∼35°C with current, power density, internal resistance (R_in), Coulombic efficiency (CE) and maximum chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of 2.51 ± 0.2 mA, 74 ± 6 mW m⁻³, 25.4 Ω, 10.65 ± 0.5% and 93.57 ± 1.2%, respectively. Maximum current density increases linearly with temperature at a rate of 0.1772 mA m⁻² °C⁻¹, whereas maximum power density was in a polynomial function. The temperature coefficient (Q₁₀) is found to be 1.20 between 15°C and 35°C. Present studies have demonstrated better CE performance when compared to other MFC-AHSs. Generally, MFC-AHS has demonstrated higher COD removals when compared to standalone MFC regardless of operating temperatures.

Abbreviations: ACFF: activated carbon fiber felt; APHA: American Public Health Association; CE: Coulombic efficiency; COD: chemical oxygen demand; ECG: electrocardiogram; GAC: granular activated carbon; GFB: graphite fiber brush; MFC: microbial fuel cell; MFC-AHS: microbial fuel cell integrated with adsorption hybrid system; MFC-GG: microbial fuel cell integrated with graphite granules; POME: palm oil mill effluent; PTFE: polytetrafluoroethylene; SEM: scanning electron microscope

KEYWORDS:

• Bio-energy generation
• temperature effect
• hybrid microbial fuel cell
• adsorption
• palm oil mill effluent

Acknowledgements

The first author was initially supported fully by the ERGS grant and recently obtained her prestige MOHE’s MyPhD scholarship and DPP grant. The authors would like to thank all staff for their continuous encouragements throughout this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Mohammad Omar Abdullah http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0819-3877

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Malaysia [Exploratory Research Grant Scheme (ERGS), contract no: EGRS/STG07(01)/1006/2013(13)]; and Dana Pelajar PhD (DPP) [grant number: F02(DPP29)/1244/2015(04)].