Techniques for the study and development of microbial fuel cells: an electrochemical perspective

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) represent a clean and renewable energy resource. To date, power generation in MFCs is severely limited. In order to improve performance, a wide range of techniques have been utilised for a fundamental scientific understanding of the components and processes and also to investigate MFC performance bottlenecks. In this tutorial review, we discuss the electrochemical/electroanalytical techniques employed in recent MFC studies and discusses the principles, experimental implementation, data processing requirements, capabilities, and weaknesses of these techniques.