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Study explores cost-effective soil microbial fuel cell designs by analyzing the effect of decreasing current collector amounts on performance, finding that increasing current collector does not enhance power densities.

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What they did

System
MFC

What worked

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Abstract

Soil microbial fuel cell (SMFC) is a carbon-neutral energy harvesting technology that exploits the use of electroactive bacteria naturally present in soil to directly generate electricity from organic compounds. Given the simplicity of the system design, SMFCs have great potential to be used for decentralised solutions, especially in areas where access to conventional energy sources is limited. Yet, the high cost to power ratio severely limits the translation of this technology into the market. With the aim of reducing the capital cost, in this study we explore the effect of decreasing the amounts of current collector (CC) on the performance. The results demonstrate that increasing the amount of current collector per surface area of the electrode is not a feasible way of enhancing power densities, as to increase the performance by 20% and 35%, the amount of current collector would have to be increased by 150% and 300%, respectively. This highlights the importance of economic evaluations when optimising the design of a SMFC.

Key findings

  • Increasing current collector amounts does not enhance power densities.
  • 150% increase in current collector is required to achieve 20% performance increase.
  • 300% increase in current collector is required to achieve 35% performance increase.

Keywords

Microbial fuel cellCapital costElectricityCurrent (fluid)Current collectorProcess engineering

Identifiers

DOI
10.1051/e3sconf/202233408007
Journal
E3S Web of Conferences
Year
2021