EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF POWER GENERATION AND COD REMOVAL EFFICIENCY BY MICROBIAL FUEL CELL USING LACTOBACILLUS

A.I. Raju CH

doi:10.37022/jis.v7i2.139

CH. A.I. Raju Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam – 530 003, AP, India

DOI https://doi.org/10.37022/jis.v7i2.139

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a form of bioreactor that uses exoelectrogens to help produce electricity while simultaneously treating wastewater. The current study conducts two groups of trials to concentrate on the performance of acathode MFC in terms of its capacity to remove chemical oxygen demand (COD) and generate electricity.Using Lactobacillus as the biocatalyst, this research examines the air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC)'s dual ability to produce electricity and eliminate the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of wastewater. The substrate for the experiment was household wastewater in a single-chamber MFC with graphite electrodes. Over many batch cycles, the COD removal and voltage output were measured. The system produced bioelectricity steadily, reaching a maximum voltage of 0.55 V and an average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency of 78%. The results highlight the promise of Lactobacillus-based MFCs for decentralized wastewater treatment and sustainable energy production. This strategy has potential for distributed applications in wastewater treatment facilities in rural and semi-urban areas. The overall efficiency and practicality of operation may be improved by further advances in electrode materials and system scalability.

Keywords: Lactobacillus, MFC, TDS, BOD, COD, pH, and Cathode

References

1. Al-saned, Afaf J. Obaid, Baidaa A. Kitafa, and Ali S. Badday. "Microbial fuel cells (MFC) in the treatment of dairy wastewater." IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. Vol. 1067. No. 1. IOP Publishing, 2021.
2. Prasad, M. P. D., Sridevi, V., Swathi, A., & Lakshmi, P. K. (2015). Treatment of pharmaceutical industrial effluent by microbial fuel cell (MFC). International Journal for Innovative Research in Science and TechnologyT, 2(1), 241-247.
3. Das, B., Thakur, S., Chaithanya, M. S., & Biswas, P. (2019). Batch investigation of constructed wetland microbial fuel cell with reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate and wastewater mix as substrate. Biomass and Bioenergy, 122, 231-237.
4. Aswin, T., S. Begum, and S. Y. Sikkandar. "Optimization of microbial fuel cell for treating industrial wastewater and simultaneous power generation." Int J ChemSci 15.2 (2017): 132.
5. Firdous, S., Jin, W., Shahid, N., Bhatti, Z. A., Iqbal, A., Abbasi, U., ... & Ali, A. (2018). The performance of microbial fuel cells treating vegetable oil industrial wastewater. Environmental technology & innovation, 10, 143-151.
6. Thakur, Somil, and Bhaskar Das. "Performance evaluation of microbial fuel cell with sewage wastewater and RO concentrate using composite anode made of Luffa aegyptiaca." Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy 40.1 (2021): e13504.
7. Sivakumar, D. "Wastewater treatment and bioelectricity production in microbial fuel cell: salt bridge configurations." International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 18 (2021): 1379-1394.
8. Yuvraj, C., and V. Aranganathan. "Configuration analysis of stacked microbial fuel cell in power enhancement and its application in wastewater treatment." Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering 43 (2018): 101-108.
9. Sushma, r., and c. Lakshmi. "A Statistical Analysis To Identify The Key Parameters Affecting Wastewater Treatment Using Microbial Fuel Cell." Methods 61.07 (2024).
10. Marassi, Rodrigo José, et al. "Electricity production and treatment of high-strength dairy wastewater in a microbial fuel cell using acclimated electrogenic consortium." International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 16 (2019): 7339-7348.
11. Ismail, ZainabZiad, and Ahmed YasirRadeef. "The effect of total suspended solids on the electricity generation in microbial fuel cell treating actual potato chips processing wastewater." Journal of Engineering 26.1 (2020).
12. Raju, C. H. A. I., Pratyusha, K. V. D., Lakshmi, N. N., Raju, P. R., Prasad, G., &Yugandhar, N. M. (2021). Studies on development of microbial fuel cell for waste water treatment using bakers yeast. Materials Today: Proceedings, 44, 683-688.
13. Obasi, Livinus A., and Okechukwu D. Onukwuli. "Bioremediation of agro-wastewater of poultry in a microbial fuel cell." J Biotechnol Bioresearch 2.2 (2019): 0005341-0005345.
14. Prasad, M. P. D., Sridevi, V., Aswini, N., Reddy, A. V. K., &Satyanarayana, P. A. (2015). Treatment of sugar industry effluent using microbial fuel cells. Science, Technology and Arts Research Journal, 4(2), 247-251.
15. Nayak, Jagdeep K., and Uttam K. Ghosh. "An innovative mixotrophic approach of distillery spent wash with sewage wastewater for biodegradation and bioelectricity generation using microbial fuel cell." Journal of water process engineering 23 (2018): 306-313.
16. Booki Min, ShaoanCheng, Bruce E.Logan, (2005). “Electricity generation using membrane andsalt bridge microbial fuel cells”. Water Research 39, 1675–1686.
17. Bruce E. Logan, Maxwell J. Wallack, Kyoung-Yeol Kim, Weihua He, Yujie Feng, and Pascal E. Saikaly, “Assessment of Microbial Fuel Cell Configurations and Power Densities”, Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2015, 2, 206−214
18. Dena Z. Khater, R. S. Amin, M. O. Zhran, Zeinab K. Abd El Aziz, Mohamed Mahmoud, Helmy M. Hassan and K. M. El Khatib, “The enhancement of microbial fuel cell performance by anodic bacterial community adaptation and cathodic mixed nickel–copper oxides on a graphene electrocatalyst”, Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (2022) 20:12
19. Jinfeng Wu, Stefano Galli, IvanoLagana, AfonsoPozio, Giulia Monteleone, Xiao Zi Yuan, Jonathan Martin, Haijiang Wang, “An air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell with combined oxidant and coolant flow”, Journal of Power Sources 188 (2009) 199–204
20. Jennifer L. Stager,XiaoyuanZhang, Bruce E.Logan, (2017). “Addition of acetate improves stability of power generation using microbial fuel cells treating domestic vwastewater”. Bioelectrochemistry 118, 154–160.
21. KeChristObileke, Helen Onyeaka, Edson L Meyer, NwabunwanneNwokolo, “Microbial fuel cells, a renewable energy technology for bio-electricity generation: A mini-review”, Electrochemistry Communications 125 (2021) 107003
22. Kamau JM, Mbui DN, Mwaniki JM, Mwaura FB and Kamau GN, “Microbial Fuel Cells: Influence of External Resistors on Power, Current and Power Density”, J ThermodynCatal 2017, 8:1
23. Ramya, E. Senthilkumar, G. SivagaamiSundari, K. Thileep Kumar, R. A. Kalaivani, S. Raghu andA.M.Shanmugaraj, “HIGH POWER AND ENERGY DENSITY OF REDOX ADDITIVE IN MICROBIAL FUEL CELL”, Rasayan J. Chem. Vol. 12 | No. 1 |91 - 100| January - March | 2019
24. Vinicius Fabiano Passos, Sidney Aquino Neto, Adalgisa Rodrigues de Andrade, Valeria Reginatto, “Energy generation in a Microbial Fuel Cell using anaerobic sludge from a wastewater treatment Plant”, Sci. Agric. v.73, n.5, p.424-428, September/October 2016
25. Yanzhen Fan, Hongqiang Hu, Hong Liu, “Enhanced Coulombic efficiency and power density of air-cathode microbial fuel cells with an improved cell configuration”, Journal of Power Sources 171 (2007) 348–354
26. Zhen He, “Development of Microbial Fuel Cells Needs To Go beyond “Power Density”, ACS Energy Lett. 2017, 2, 700−702
27. D.F. Juang, C.H. Lee, S.C.Hsueh, (2012). “Comparison of electrogenic capabilities of microbial fuel cell with different light power on algae grown cathode”, Bioresource Technology 123, 23–29.
28. De-Bin Wang, Tian-Shun Song, TingGuo, QingluZeng, JingjingXie, (2014). “Electricity generation from sediment microbial fuel cells with algae-assisted cathodes.” international journal of hydrogen energy 39, 13224-13230.