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      Comprehensive Study on Ceramic Membranes for Low‐Cost Microbial Fuel Cells

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          Abstract

          Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) made with different types of ceramic membranes were investigated to find a low‐cost alternative to commercially available proton exchange membranes. The MFCs operated with fresh human urine as the fuel. Pyrophyllite and earthenware produced the best performance to reach power densities of 6.93 and 6.85 W m −3, respectively, whereas mullite and alumina achieved power densities of 4.98 and 2.60 W m −3, respectively. The results indicate the dependence of bio‐film growth and activity on the type of ceramic membrane applied. The most favourable conditions were created in earthenware MFCs. The performance of the ceramic membranes was related to their physical and chemical properties determined by environmental scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy. The cost of mullite, earthenware, pyrophyllite and alumina was estimated to be 13.61, 4.14, 387.96 and 177.03 GBP m −2, respectively. The results indicate that earthenware and mullite are good substitutes for commercially available proton exchange membranes, which makes the MFC technology accessible in developing countries.

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          Fouling of proton exchange membrane (PEM) deteriorates the performance of microbial fuel cell.

          Juan Xu, Guo-Ping Sheng, Hong-Wei Luo … (2012)
          The fouling characteristics of proton exchange membrane (PEM) in microbial fuel cell (MFC) and the resulting deterioration of MFC performance were explored in this study. It was observed that the ion exchange capacity, conductivity and diffusion coefficients of cations of PEM were reduced significantly after fouling. Imaging analysis coupled with FTIR analysis indicated that the fouling layer attached on PEM consisted of microorganisms encased in extracellular polymers and inorganic salt precipitations. The results clearly demonstrate that PEM fouling deteriorated the performance of MFCs and led to a decrease in electricity generation. Cation transfer limitation might play an important role in the deterioration of MFC performance because of the membrane fouling. This was attributed to the physical blockage of charge transfer in the MFC resulted from the membrane fouling. With the experimental results, the effect of membrane fouling on the electrical generation of MFCs was evaluated. It was found that the decreased diffusion coefficients of cations and cathodic potential loss after membrane fouling contributed mainly to the deterioration of the MFC performance.
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            Performance evaluation of low cost microbial fuel cell fabricated using earthen pot with biotic and abiotic cathode.

            Manaswini Behera, Partha Jana, M.M. Ghangrekar (2010)
            An attempt has been made to produce low cost MFC from the commercially available earthen pots in India, without involving any costly membrane. This MFC gave a maximum power output of 16.8 W/m(3) at a Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 31.3% with graphite plate cathode. With stainless steel mesh cathode and KMnO(4) as cathodic electrolyte the power production and CE of 70.48 W/m(3) and 64.5%, respectively, was obtained. The performance of this earthen pot MFC was evaluated with biotic and abiotic cathode. Although, biofilm formation on the cathode is observed to be helpful in enhancing power out put, the thicker biofilm on the cathode showed reduction in power. This MFC demonstrated competitive performance as compared to MFC incorporated with membrane. This low cost MFC, with total production cost of less than 1.0$, as per Indian market, demonstrated its utility as a wastewater treatment and onsite power generation device.
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              Initial development and structure of biofilms on microbial fuel cell anodes

              Suzanne T Read, Paritam Dutta, Phillip L Bond … (2010)
              Background Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) rely on electrochemically active bacteria to capture the chemical energy contained in organics and convert it to electrical energy. Bacteria develop biofilms on the MFC electrodes, allowing considerable conversion capacity and opportunities for extracellular electron transfer (EET). The present knowledge on EET is centred around two Gram-negative models, i.e. Shewanella and Geobacter species, as it is believed that Gram-positives cannot perform EET by themselves as the Gram-negatives can. To understand how bacteria form biofilms within MFCs and how their development, structure and viability affects electron transfer, we performed pure and co-culture experiments. Results Biofilm viability was maintained highest nearer the anode during closed circuit operation (current flowing), in contrast to when the anode was in open circuit (soluble electron acceptor) where viability was highest on top of the biofilm, furthest from the anode. Closed circuit anode Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms were considerably thinner compared to the open circuit anode (30 ± 3 μm and 42 ± 3 μm respectively), which is likely due to the higher energetic gain of soluble electron acceptors used. The two Gram-positive bacteria used only provided a fraction of current produced by the Gram-negative organisms. Power output of co-cultures Gram-positive Enterococcus faecium and either Gram-negative organisms, increased by 30-70% relative to the single cultures. Over time the co-culture biofilms segregated, in particular, Pseudomonas aeruginosa creating towers piercing through a thin, uniform layer of Enterococcus faecium. P. aeruginosa and E. faecium together generated a current of 1.8 ± 0.4 mA while alone they produced 0.9 ± 0.01 and 0.2 ± 0.05 mA respectively. Conclusion We postulate that this segregation may be an essential difference in strategy for electron transfer and substrate capture between the Gram-negative and the Gram-positive bacteria used here.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Prof. Ioannis Ieropoulos:
                ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9641-5504
                ioannis.ieropoulos@brl.ac.uk
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): ChemSusChem
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): ChemSusChem
                Journal ID (doi): 10.1002/(ISSN)1864-564X
                Journal ID (publisher-id): CSSC
                Title: Chemsuschem
                Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                ISSN (Print): 1864-5631
                ISSN (Electronic): 1864-564X
                Publication date (Print): 08 January 2016
                Publication date (Electronic): 21 December 2015
                Volume: 9
                Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.1002/cssc.v9.1 )
                Pages: 88-96
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Bristol BioEnergy CentreUniversity of the West of England BristolUnited Kingdom
                [ 2 ]Wroclaw University of Technology WroclawPoland
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4347-791X
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9641-5504
                Article
                Publisher ID: CSSC201501320
                DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201501320
                PMC ID: 4744959
                PubMed ID: 26692569
                SO-VID: 1a2dd304-a1cd-4513-b6ba-6ddd70bab8af
                Copyright © © 2016 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
                License:

                This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                Date received : 30 September 2015
                Date revision received : 03 November 2015
                Page count
                Figures: 7, Tables: 2, References: 40, Pages: 9
                Funding
                Funded by: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
                Award ID: OPP1094890
                Funded by: EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow
                Award ID: EP/L002132/1
                Categories
                Subject: Full Paper
                Subject: Full Papers
                Custom metadata
                source-schema-version-number 2.0
                component-id cssc201501320
                cover-date January 8, 2016
                details-of-publishers-convertor Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_NLMPMC version:4.9.1 mode:remove_FC converted:07.07.2016

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Sustainable & Green chemistry
                Keywords: biomass,ceramics,energy conversion,fuel cells,membranes
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Sustainable & Green chemistry
                Keywords: biomass, ceramics, energy conversion, fuel cells, membranes

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