Electricity production from molasses wastewater in two-chamber microbial fuel cell.

Molasses wastewater contains large amounts of glucose, and it can provide enough energy for microbial decomposition. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) in this study was demonstrated to be able to treat real wastewater with the benefit of harvesting electricity energy. Efficient operation of this MFC requires a molasses wastewater and preferably an inexpensive anode electrolyte. The results from a batch of experiments showed that molasses wastewater could not only serve as the electron acceptor in anode, but also generate electricity stably. A maximum voltage output of 514.5 mV and a maximum power density of 65.82 mW/m(2) were recorded at external resistance of 1,000 Ω. The MFC not only effectively dealt with the molasses wastewater, the chemical oxygen demand removal rate is 81.22%, but also had a significant effect in the processing of analog silver wastewater. At the end of the experiment, after disassembling the device, silver precipitation was found stacked on the cathode carbon paper electrode, and some black sediment was found at the side of the proton membrane anode.

[Electricity generation performance of two-chamber microbial full cell in the treatment of simulated wastewater].

The start-up procedures, the degradation efficiency of organics at the anode and the removal efficiency of Cu2+ at the cathode of the cell were studied, based on which the performance of MFC (microbial fuel cell) in electricity generation and wastewater treatment was evaluated. A simple two-chamber microbial fuel cell was established with simulated molasses wastewater as substrate at the anode and simulated electroplating wastewater as an electron acceptor at the cathode. The results from a batch of experiments showed that the highest voltage output of 417.00 mV was obtained at an external resistance of 800 Omega, and that the maximum power density of 44.17 mW x m(-2) was obtained with an internal resistance of 293 Omega based on the polarization curve. In addition, COD removal rate reached its highest value (47.31%) in the fifth cycle, and the maximum removal rate (59.76%) for Cu2+ was recorded in the fourth cycle. In summary, the application of MFC in the treatment of organic wastewater and electroplating wastewater is feasible.