Enhancement of methyl orange degradation and power generation in a photoelectrocatalytic microbial fuel cell

He-Xing Han, Chen Shi, Li Yuan and Guo-Ping Sheng

Applied Energy, 2017, vol. 204, issue C, 382-389

Abstract: It is of significant importance to develop renewable and environmentally friendly technologies for sustainable wastewater treatment and energy recovery. Microbial fuel cell (MFC), a bioelectrochemical system, has attracted more and more attention because it can treat wastewater and harvest energy simultaneously. However, the practical applications of MFC are often limited by its high cathodic overpotential, relatively slow pollutant degradation rate, and low power output. In this study, a photoelectrocatalytic microbial fuel cell (photo-MFC), consisting of a Pd nanoparticle-modified p-type Si nanowire photocathode and an electricigen-colonized bioanode, was used to degrade a model azo dye, methyl orange (MO), and to generate electricity simultaneously. Results show that the introduction of photocathode enhanced the MO reduction reactivity through reducing the thermodynamic barrier and overpotential of the reduction reaction. Under visible-light illumination, the photo-MFC presented a MO removal efficiency of 84.5% and maximum output power density of 0.119W/m2 within 36h, which were double of those of the conventional MFC with a carbon paper cathode. This observation could be attributed to the synergistic effect of photocathode and bioanode in photo-MFC, which significantly enhanced MO reduction and electricity generation. The new findings reported in this work could provide a new technique for wastewater treatment, and spur interest in using the photo-MFC for treating azo dye wastewater and harvesting energy simultaneously.

Keywords: Electricity generation; Methyl orange (MO); Photoelectrocatalytic microbial fuel cell (photo-MFC); Photocathode; Reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261917309005
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:appene:v:204:y:2017:i:c:p:382-389

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.07.032

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().