Electricity generation, energy storage, and microbial-community analysis in microbial fuel cells with multilayer capacitive anodes

Yuyang Wang, Ye Chen, Qing Wen, Hongtao Zheng, Haitao Xu and Lijuan Qi

Energy, 2019, vol. 189, issue C

Abstract: Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can potentially be used for power generation, but their low energy storage hinders their practical application. This study presents a novel, multilayer capacitive bioanode, modified using nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNT), polyaniline (PANI), and manganese dioxide (MnO2). The power-generation and energy-storage performance of MFCs containing carbon felt (CF)/N-CNT/PANI/MnO2 anodes was found to be much higher than that of traditional MFCs. The power density of an MFC with a CF/N-CNT/PANI/MnO2 bioanode (13.8 W/m3) was 2.7 times greater than that of an MFC with a bare anode (3.73 W/m3). Similarly, the exchange current density of the bioanode (0.41 A/m2) was much higher than that of the bare anode (0.06 A/m2). In chronoamperometric tests with 60 min of charging and discharging, it was observed that the stored charge of the bioanode (2492.80 C/m2) was 33 times higher than that of the bare anode (75.50 C/m2). High-throughput sequencing results showed that the CF/N-CNT/PANI/MnO2-modified bioanode exhibited high community diversity and selective enrichment of electrogenic bacteria. The dominant genera on the modified anode were electroactive bacteria, Desulfuromonas (34.39%) and Geobacter (27.93%). Therefore, MFCs with capacitive bioanodes show potential for storage and release of energy within short periods of time.

Keywords: Capacitive bioanode; Multilayer composite; Microbial fuel cell (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:189:y:2019:i:c:s0360544219320377

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116342

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