Livestock’s Urine-Based Plant Microbial Fuel Cells Improve Plant Growth and Power Generation

Wilgince Apollon, Juan Antonio Vidales-Contreras, Humberto Rodríguez-Fuentes, Juan Florencio Gómez-Leyva, Emilio Olivares-Sáenz, Víctor Arturo Maldonado-Ruelas, Raúl Arturo Ortiz-Medina, Sathish-Kumar Kamaraj and Alejandro Isabel Luna-Maldonado
Additional contact information
Wilgince Apollon: Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Francisco Villa S/N, Ex-Hacienda El Canadá, General Escobedo 66050, Nuevo León, Mexico
Juan Antonio Vidales-Contreras: Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Francisco Villa S/N, Ex-Hacienda El Canadá, General Escobedo 66050, Nuevo León, Mexico
Humberto Rodríguez-Fuentes: Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Francisco Villa S/N, Ex-Hacienda El Canadá, General Escobedo 66050, Nuevo León, Mexico
Juan Florencio Gómez-Leyva: Molecular Biology Laboratory, TecNM-Technological Institute of Tlajomulco (ITTJ), Km 10 Carretera a San Miguel Cuyutlán, Tlajomulco de Zúñiga 45640, Jalisco, Mexico
Emilio Olivares-Sáenz: Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Francisco Villa S/N, Ex-Hacienda El Canadá, General Escobedo 66050, Nuevo León, Mexico
Víctor Arturo Maldonado-Ruelas: Postgraduate and Research Department, Polytechnic University of Aguascalientes (UPA), Paseo San Gerardo No. 207, Fracc. San Gerardo, Aguascalientes 20342, Mexico
Raúl Arturo Ortiz-Medina: Postgraduate and Research Department, Polytechnic University of Aguascalientes (UPA), Paseo San Gerardo No. 207, Fracc. San Gerardo, Aguascalientes 20342, Mexico
Sathish-Kumar Kamaraj: Sustainable Environment Laboratory, TecNM-Technological Institute El Llano Aguascalientes (ITEL), Km. 18 Carretera Aguascalientes-San Luis Potosí, El Llano, Aguascalientes 20330, Mexico
Alejandro Isabel Luna-Maldonado: Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Francisco Villa S/N, Ex-Hacienda El Canadá, General Escobedo 66050, Nuevo León, Mexico

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Plant microbial fuel cells (P-MFCs) are sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, which use plant root exudates to directly nourish the electrochemically active bacteria (EABs) to generate sustainable electricity. However, their use in evaluating plant growth has been insufficiently studied. In this study, interconnection between plant growth and the production of bioelectricity was evaluated by using P-MFCs inoculated with 642.865 mL ? 643 mL of livestock’s urine such as cow urine, goat urine, and sheep urine. The greatest mean stem diameter of 0.52 ± 0.01 cm was found in P-MFC-3 inoculated with goat urine, while the P-MFC-2 treated with cow urine reached a higher average number of roots with a value of 86 ± 2.50 (95% improvement) ( p < 0.05). Besides, P-MFC-4 presented greater height of 50.08 ± 0.67 cm. For polarization curve experiment a higher maximum power density of 132 ± 11.6 mW m ?2 (931 mA m ?2 ) was reached with cow urine; in turn, with regard to the long-term operation, the same reactor indicated a higher maximum average power density of 43.68 ± 3.05 mW m ?2 . The study’s findings indicated that Stevia P-MFC inoculated with urine was a good option to increase the biomass amount for the agricultural plants along with power generation. Further, this study opens the way for more investigation of evaluating the impact of P-MFC on plant growth.

Keywords: electrochemically active bacteria; plant microbial fuel cell; power generation; power density; plant growth; polarization curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/6985/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/6985/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:19:p:6985-:d:923259

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().