Review on manganese oxide based biocatalyst in microbial fuel cell: Nanocomposite approach

Producing renewable energy from renewable waste effluents are a promising and alternative way to reduce energy crises. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are thus a unique energy conversion devices capable of converting the stored chemical energy from waste matters which are pollutants in to renewable, reliable, and non-polluting energy sources through the action of electroactive microorganisms. It is an emerging and promising technology device to treat wastes with reducing energy crisis and global warming by producing green energy. It uses a wide variety of organic matters as a fuel and mostly do not use an expensive transition metal oxide (TMO) based biocatalyst. Newer concepts in manganese oxide based nickel oxide (NiO) nanocomposites in the presence of conducting polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy) and polyaniline (PANI) as a biocatalyst for the development of alternative electrode materials along with innovative bioremediations have been made MFCs very promising technology. Therefore, this article provides a brief review of recent biocatalyst developments that have been applied in MFCs so far, with their bioelectricity generation and wastewater utilization from different pollutant discharges.