Study of The Effect of pH on The Performance of Microbial Fuel Cell for Generation of Bioelectricity

Abstract

Abstract Background: Day by day microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology is becoming a thought-provoking topic to the researcher because for its simultaneous utilization e.g. electricity production and wastewater treatment. Since wastewater is an important source of electrolyte for MFC, the key tenacity of this study was to investigate the outcome of pH happening various (Municipal, Bhairab river and Hospital) wastewaters used as electrolyte in dual chamber MFC.Findings: The lab-scale experiment was conducted in batch mode, where zinc plate (0.0027m2) as anode and copper plate (0.0027m2) as cathode. In this study a single electrolyte (any one of earlier mentioned three electrolytes) was used in five dual-chambers MFC where the pH of the electrolyte was 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. The MFC was worked on a temperature ranged from 27°C to 34°C. Maximum outputs were found in terms of current density (1288.9mAm-2), voltage (1132 mV) and power density (1459.02wmw-2) were obtained at pH 8 by using Bhairab river water as an electrolyte in MFC chamber. A substantial amount of COD removal (94%) was also achieved in the same MFC chamber at the same pH (i.e. pH 8). However, the optimum operating pH for MFC containing municipal wastewater and hospital wastewater was found to be 8 and 9, respectively.Conclusion: The results suggest that various wastewaters may act as feasible feedstocks for bioelectricity generation in MFC. The results also show that COD can be removed from wastewater that suggest a treatment possibility of wastewater.