Performance investigation of multi-chamber microbial fuel cell: An alternative approach for scale up system

The performance of a multi-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) was investigated that consisting of four anodes and a cathode component separated by a membrane. The arrangements of the anode and cathode chambers were similar to four individual MFCs stack connected electrically in parallel fashion by sharing a cathode chamber. The multi-anode chamber MFC produced maximum open circuit potential of 720 ± 20 mV and the peak power density of 52.8 mW/m2 (162.5 mA/m2) at 100 Ω as normalized to the anode surface area. The effect of cathodic parameters such as electrode area, shapes, and catholyte concentrations was studied as factors affecting the power production. The wastewater concentration of 8720 mg COD/l was achieved the peak power density of 135.4 mW/m2 (368 mA/m2) using a graphite electrode with catholyte concentration of 100 mM potassium ferricyanide and 150 cm2 cathode electrode area. The results demonstrated that the proposed design may be an alternative approach to obtain high power generation and small space occupation for the scale-up MFC system.