Use of Glycerol as Substrate for Electricity Generation Using Citrobacter sp. in a Double Chambered Microbial Fuel Cell

ABSTRACT

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have the potential to convert organic substratesinto electricity thus facilitating the strategies of renewable energy production. In recentyears the exploration for newer energy resources for MFC has widened and in thiscontext, the use of glycerol in bioenergy production was investigated to check itsefficacy in electricity generation. Thus, the power generation of a double-chamberedMFC was observed with glycerol as the substrate and Citrobacter sp. as the bacteriumof interest. Here, the MFC system yielded a power density of 79.42 mW/m² with carboncloth as the electrodes and Nafion as the proton exchange membrane. Further, the MFCsystem was optimized for the ambient temperature, in which the maximum voltage andcurrent were obtained at 35⁰C. In the study, the Citrobacter sp. showed its bestperformance at the optimum temperature of 350C. Likewise, the optimal pH for the MFCsystem in which the electrical output was high was observed in the pH value of 7.4.Moreover, the anodic bacterial biofilm analysis under confocal microscope providedevidence of the presence of live bacteria which were responsible for the efficientcurrent generation of the MFC system.