6533b862fe1ef96bd12c6577

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Electricity production in microbial fuel cell with Cu-B alloy as catalyst of anode

subject

description

Considering the increasing standard of living, the energy consumption increases as well, and so does waste production. However, there is a possibility to combine energy production and wastewater treatment. A device that can accomplish this task is a microbial fuel cell. In microbial fuel cells activated sludge bacteria can be used for electricity production during wastewater treatment. One of the problems with microbial fuel cells is a low current density of those energy sources. Nonetheless, it is possible to increase the current density by using the catalyst for fuel electrode (anode) – as long as a low cost catalyst can be found. The possibility of wastewater treatment using the Cu-B alloy as catalyst for microbial fuel cells is presented in this paper. The increase of current density with Cu-B catalyst is approximately 0.24-0,28 mA/cm2. Use of Cu-B catalyst will increase the efficiency in the use of microorganisms for the production of electricity. This will contribute to the development of high efficiency green energy sources. However, the current density is low to obtained high efficiency microbial fuel cell with Cu-B catalyst. Additionally, constructed prototype microbial fuel cell with Cu-B catalyst generates low power.