Lemon grass derived porous carbon impregnated with NiWO4 as anode electrocatalyst to improve energy output in single chambered microbial fuel cell

Keeping an eye on the improvement of electron transportation, highly macroporous, stable, and the highly conductive carbon material is prepared from lemongrass, a known high cellulose content biomass. In order to further enhance its redox reaction and electron capture ability, the prepared biomass is further impregnated with a binary metal oxide, nickel tungsten oxide (NiWO4). The physiochemical and morphological analyses confirmed the successful preparation of the anode electrocatalyst, and additionally, the electrochemical analysis revealed its higher oxidation reduction rate and stability. Importantly, the as prepared activated lemon grass carbon (ALC) and activated lemon grass carbon impregnated with NiWO4 (ALC@NiWO4) as anode catalyst based single chambered microbial fuel cell (SMFC) have yielded about 2.2 fold and 3.6 fold more power density compared to only carbon cloth (CC) anode based SMFC. The enhanced anode performance of these microporous nanocomposite modified anode is due to improved bacterial adhesion in the micro-pores, reduced charge transfer resistance, and improved capacitance in comparison to the coated CC. These findings have important implications for the development of high-performance SMFCs and the utilization of abundant biomass resources for energy generation.