Microbial Fuel Cell for Production of Electricity by Radiation Developed Membrane using Domestic Wastewater Consortia

Abstract

Securing water and energy resources to match increasing demand are becoming a great challenging. The pressure of water availability has also affected water consuming sectors, such as public water supply, agriculture, industry and of course power generation. Domestic and industrial wastewaters are representing a potential source of energy and water. The development of technologies capable of simultaneously recovering energy and water from wastewater are crucial to resource management in the future. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are one such technologies that can be particularly advantageous because they are capable of degrading organic matter, including organic wastes, to harvest electricity. MFCs employ electro-active bacteria, which generate electricity by consuming organic pollutants, as part of their anaerobic metabolism. Generally, double chamber MFC consists of two parts: anode and cathode which are separated by a proton exchange membrane (PEM). Anaerobic oxidation of organic substances occurs in the anode compartment, during this process protons, electrons and carbon dioxide are released. In this case, the