Lignocellulosic biomass based microbial fuel cells: Performance and applications

Lignocellulosic biomass has the potential to replace fossil fuels as a sustainable and renewable feedstock for energy generation. Microbial fuel cell technology offers an energy-producing system from lignocellulosic biomass. This review explores different microbial fuel cell designs i.e. membrane-less single chambered, double chambered and integrated microbial fuel cell along with their mode of operation. There are some compatibility issues with different microbial fuel cell designs in utilizing the lignocellulosic biomass as feed. Microbial fuel cell setup with integrated pre-treatment or simultaneous degradation of lignocellulosic biomass may provide a solution. A careful selection of microbial community according to the microbial fuel cell operation conditions along with upscaling of the system may help in efficient utilization of renewable energy sources. Thus, lignocellulosic biomass-based microbial fuel cell may potentially be used in the bioremediation, production of biofuels and industrially important value-added products along with simultaneous production of electricity.