Influence of Anodic Characters of Microbial Fuel Cell on Power Generation Performance

Taking anodic internal resistance and anodic open circuit potentials as evaluation indexes,the power generation performances of three anodic materials including carbon paper,graphite and carbon felt were compared.The influence of anodic characters such as the pore volume,surface area,aperture distribution,surface roughness and surface electric potential on the power generation performances of microbial fuel cell was investigated.The results show that the increasing of the pore volume,surface area and internal aperture of porous electrodes can increase biomass on the anode and decrease anodic internal resistance.The increasing of surface roughness of non-porous electrodes can also increase biomass on the anode and decrease anodic internal resistance.The surface electric potential has an effect on anodic microbial enrichment and power generation.When the initial potentials of anodes are 450 mV,300 mV and 40 mV,the total amounts of protein on these anodes are 38 μg/cm2,82 μg/cm2 and 98 μg/cm2,respectively.Therefore,lower surface potential results in higher biomass and lower anodic internal resistance.