Microbial fuel cell - a source of renewable energy: a review

Abstract

Energy crisis in the world is increasing on a yearly basis due to depletion of reserved fossil fuels as well as continued increase in the prices. There is an urgent need to identify an alternate fuel or a renewable source for energy production. Hence, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can play an important major role in producing bioelectricity using various organic and biodegradable waste. The traditional MFCs consisted of anode and cathode compartments. MFCs are of two types single chambered and double chambered. Micro-organisms actively use organic substrate for their metabolism, and the bioelectricity generated. Apart from the bioelectricity production, MFCs has many applications like in wastewater treatment, in biosensor, in bio-hydrogen production, in bio-methane production etc. Besides the advantages of this technology, MFCs have some limitations such as low voltage, power and current density. To overcome these limitations, the different components of MFC such as electrodes and proton exchange membrane modified to explore the other possible practical options. Besides that, this research update describes the improvement and advancement of MFCs with their advantageous and futuristic application with different parameters affecting the bioelectricity production.

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1504/IJRET.2017.10008004

Journal

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology

Year

2017