Porosity and biofilm attachment on carbon anode materials for honeycomb microbial fuel cell

College

Gokongwei College of Engineering

Department/Unit

Mechanical Engineering

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Journal of the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineers

Volume

42

Issue

6

First Page

581

Last Page

586

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) mainly generate energy through microbial metabolism, and microorganisms attachment to the anode plate to form biofilms. For MFCs experiments, the plate material needs to have good electrical conductivity, chemical stability and biocompatibility. At present, carbon electrode plates are often used in MFCs, but different porosities influence the microbial adhesion. Thus, this study uses a carbon cloth, a carbon felt, and a graphite felt to explore the effect on biofilms under the carbon electrode plates of different porosities in honeycomb mesh continuous microbial fuel cells (HC-MFCs). The results show that the currents of carbon felt, graphite felt, and carbon cloth are 34.09 mA, 30.02 mA, and 3.08 mA. It is found that the carbon felt and graphite felt have higher electrical results than carbon cloth, mainly due to the high porosities of the carbon and graphite felt. In addition, the electrode material affects the formation of biofilms and further the electrical performance of MFCs. Through the internal resistance of the system equivalent circuit analysis, the results of the anode activation impedance (R2) and anode electrical double layer (C1) show that compared with carbon felt and graphite felt, carbon cloth has a higher resistance value and biofilm formation, which makes it worse in electrical performance of HC-MFC. Therefore, it can be known that the higher material porosity will affect the biofilm formation. This study is aimed to provide MFC research on porosity and biofilm.

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Disciplines

Materials Science and Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Keywords

Microbial fuel cells; Porosity; Biofilms

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