Waste to energy conversion utilizing nanostructured Algal‐based microbial fuel cells

Abstract

Abstract Increasing environmental pollution along with the depletion of energy resources are critical challenges. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs), a simple fuel cell that converts chemical energy into bioelectricity by the catalytic activities of living microbes, are evolving as a multipurpose renewable energy technology. The power generation via the MFCs depends on harvesting free electrons from the electroactive microorganisms, popularly known as exoelectrogens, to simultaneously produce electricity and treat wastewater. In the present work, nanostructured bio‐electrochemical systems are designed to exploit the usability of algae biomass collected from high rate algal pond system (HRAP) either as algal‐living cells or as dry biomass for bioelectricity production via several approaches (i.e., the algae will act as bioanode, biocathode, or nutrient substrate). The obtained results indicated that a higher electric current is produced when microalgae living cells are exploited as bio‐cathode in a double‐chamber‐microbial fuel cell (DCMFC) with a net power density (250 mW/m 2 ) combined with high‐efficiency removal of COD reached 44.8%. Overall, the study's findings suggested that living algal cells from HRAP support high power output from a DMFC when they are exploited as biocathode, hence, the system introduced the opportunity to redesign the high rate algal ponds in the wastewater treatment plants in a way to produce energy plus the main assigned tasks which are the removal of wastes.

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1002/elsa.202100071

Journal

Electrochemical Science Advances

Year

2022