Performance of a greywater cathode in a microbial fuel cell with three ion exchange membranes

Abstract

Abstract BACKGROUND Greywater and blackwater treatment is necessary to make sanitation and water reuse possible, and microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have emerged as a promising technology for achieving this objective. Ion exchange membranes play a key role in double chamber microbial fuel cell performance, but there are differences of opinion as to which membrane type is better. RESULTS This project was set up to study the effect of three ion exchange membranes (Nafion® 117, Ultrex™ CMI‐7000 and Ultrex™ AMI‐7001) in MFCs using greywater as catholyte in stacks of three microbial fuel cells each. The results demonstrate that the stacks with cationic membranes (Nafion® 117 and Ultrex™ CMI‐7000) generated higher power (201.50 ± 21.62 and 178.74 ± 56.89 mW m −3 , respectively) than those with the anionic membrane stack Ultrex™ AMI‐7001 (71.57 ± 3.46 mW m −3 ). For the greywater catholyte, a 31% of chemical oxygen demand removal was achieved and proved to be an option as a catholyte in microbial fuel cells for countries that carry out wastewater separation. CONCLUSIONS The results obtained in this study demonstrated that an anion exchange membrane is not a better option for double chamber MFCs. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

Key findings

• ▸Cationic membranes (Nafion 117 and Ultrex CMI-7000) generated higher power (201.50 ± 21.62 and 178.74 ± 56.89 mW m⁻³) than anionic membrane (Ultrex AMI-7001) (71.57 ± 3.46 mW m⁻³)
• ▸31% of chemical oxygen demand removal was achieved using greywater as catholyte
• ▸Greywater proved to be a viable option as a catholyte in microbial fuel cells

Keywords

Identifiers

DOI

10.1002/jctb.5927

Journal

Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology

Year

2019