Impact of Dragon Fruit Waste in Microbial Fuel Cells to Generate Friendly Electric Energy

Rojas-Flores Segundo (), Santiago M. Benites, Magaly De La Cruz-Noriega, Juan Vives-Garnique, Nélida Milly Otiniano, Walter Rojas-Villacorta, Moisés Gallozzo-Cardenas, Daniel Delfín-Narciso and Félix Díaz
Additional contact information
Rojas-Flores Segundo: Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Universidad Autónoma del Perú, Lima 15842, Peru
Santiago M. Benites: Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Universidad Autónoma del Perú, Lima 15842, Peru
Magaly De La Cruz-Noriega: Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias y Tecnología de la Universidad Cesar Vallejo, Trujillo 13001, Peru
Juan Vives-Garnique: Escuela de Ingeniería Mecánica Eléctrica, Universidad Señor de Sipán, Chiclayo 14000, Peru
Nélida Milly Otiniano: Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias y Tecnología de la Universidad Cesar Vallejo, Trujillo 13001, Peru
Walter Rojas-Villacorta: Programa de Investigación Formativa, Universidad Cesar Vallejo, Trujillo 13001, Peru
Moisés Gallozzo-Cardenas: Departamento de Ciencias, Universidad Tecnológica del Perú, Trujillo 13011, Peru
Daniel Delfín-Narciso: Grupo de Investigación en Ciencias Aplicadas y Nuevas Tecnologías, Universidad Privada del Norte, Trujillo 13007, Peru
Félix Díaz: Escuela Académica Profesional de Medicina Humana, Universidad Norbert Wiener, Lima 15046, Peru

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: Pollution generated by the misuse of large amounts of fruit and vegetable waste has become a major environmental and social problem for developing countries due to the absence of specialized collection centers for this type of waste. This research aims to generate electricity in an eco-friendly way using red dragon fruit (pitahaya) waste as the fuel in single-chamber microbial fuel cells on a laboratory scale using zinc and copper electrodes. It was possible to generate voltage and current peaks of 0.46 ± 0.03 V and 2.86 ± 0.07 mA, respectively, with an optimum operating pH of 4.22 ± 0.09 and an electrical conductivity of 175.86 ± 4.72 mS/cm at 8 °Brix until the tenth day of monitoring. An internal resistance of 75.58 ± 5.89 Ω was also calculated with a maximum power density of 304.33 ± 16.51 mW/cm 2 at a current density of 5.06 A/cm 2 , while the FTIR spectra showed a decrease in the initial compounds and endings, especially at the 3331 cm −1 peaks of the O–H bonds. Finally, the yeast-like fungus Geotrichum candidum was molecularly identified (99.59%). This research will provide great opportunities for the generation of renewable energy using biomass as fuel through electronic devices with great potential to generate electricity.

Keywords: dragon fruit; fruit waste; microbial fuel cells; generation; bioelectricity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7316/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7316/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:9:p:7316-:d:1134888

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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