Waste to Sustainable Energy-MFCs – Prospects through Prognosis

343 Pages·2019·17.47 MB·\343

by  Lakhveer Singh (Editor), Durga Madhab Mahapatra (Editor)

Waste to Sustainable Energy
MFCs – Prospects through Prognosis
Editors
Lakhveer Singh
Biological and Ecological Engineering
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
Durga Madhab Mahapatra
Biological & Ecological Engineering
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
p,
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Preface
Extensive use of fossil fuels for energy have negatively contributed to the
environment owing to the emission of carbon dioxide and other harmful
gases as serious atmospheric pollutants and particulates, and has resulted
in soaring global warming. At the same time, various waste products from
domestic, agricultural, animal facilities, refineries and industries also cause
a tremendous environmental burden that needs treatment and recycle.
Energy systems from MFC’s can be used for combating both environmental
problems and offsetting the pollution loads. This creates more opportunities
for renewable and green fuel production that can substitute fossil fuels and
generate commercially important coproducts from waste substrates. MFC’s
has a plethora of benefits, over other kinds of energy production routes with
a) ceased emissions (such as SOx, NOx, CO and CO), b) higher efficiency,
2
c) no mobile parts and d) least sound pollution. Although there have been
significant attempts to produce bioelectricity from bacterial electrolytic
systems right from early 1900’s, there were limitations in the yield and
feasibility of the process. However, early 1990’s witnessed innovations
in MFC designs and incorporation of various electron donor, electrode
apparatus and biocatalysts (biological agents: algae etc.) and thus have
become far more appealing. This book will focus on the state of the art of
MFC’s with various combinatories of substrates yielding bioelectricity with
valued co-products. Essentially the book will provide fundamental ideas and
basics of MFC technologies, entailing various design and modelling aspects
with examples. Various sections of the book will deal with unique aspects
of basic sciences, reactor configuration, application, market feasibility with
lucid illustrations and explanations.
The techno-economics and life cycle section will critically assess the
feasibility of waste-powered MFC’s for sustainable bioenergy production
and essentially highlight the tradeoff between resource needs and energy
production. This section will help academicians, entrepreneurs, industrialists
to understand the scope and challenges and select unique, and specific
integrated approaches in unit processes.
Lakhveer Singh
Durga Madhab Mahapatra

Contents
Preface iii
1. MFCs - From Lab to Field
Abhilasha Singh Mathuriya 1
2. Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) Variants
Sahriah Basri and Siti Kartom Kamarudin 15
3. Fundamentals of Photosynthetic Microbial Fuel Cell
Rashmi Chandra and Garima Vishal 30
4. Bio-based Products in Fuel Cells
Beenish Saba, Ann D. Christy, Kiran Abrar and Tariq Mahmood 53
5. Electrotroph as an Emerging Biocommodity Producer in a
Biocatalyzed Bioelectrochemical System
Supriyanka Rana, Lakhveer Singh and Zularisam bin ab Wahid 67
6. Role of Biocatalyst in Microbial Fuel Cell Performance
M. Amirul Islam, Ahasanul Karim, Puranjan Mishra, Che Ku Mohammad
Faizal, Md. Maksudur Rahman Khan and Abu Yousuf 85
7. Exoelectrogenic Bacteria: A Candidate for Sustainable Bio-electricity
Generation in Microbial Fuel Cells
Shraddha Shahane, Payel Choudhury, O.N. Tiwari, Umesh Mishra
and Biswanath Bhunia 106
8. Cyanobacteria: A Biocatalyst in Microbial Fuel Cell for Sustainable
Electricity Generation
Thingujam Indrama, O.N. Tiwari, Tarun Kanti Bandyopadhyay,
Abhijit Mondal and Biswanath Bhunia 125
9. Yeast and Algae as Biocatalysts in Microbial Fuel Cell
Neethu B., G.D. Bhowmick and M.M. Ghangrekar 141
10. Cost-effective Carbon Catalysts and Related Electrode Designs
for the Air Cathode of Microbial Fuel Cells
Wei Yang, Jun Li, Qian Fu, Liang Zhang, Xun Zhu, Qiang Liao 169
vi Waste to Sustainable Energy
11. Bioelectricity from Municipal Waste
Pranab Jyoti Sarma and Kaustubha Mohanty 204
12. Biological Conversion of Food Waste to Value Addition in
Microbial Fuel Cell
C. Nagendranatha Reddy and Booki Min 211
13. Optimization of Energy Production and Water Treatment
in MFCs by Modeling Tools
V.M. Ortiz-Martínez, M.J. Salar-García, A. de Ramón-Fernández,
A.P. de los Ríos, F.J. Hernández-Fernández and P. Andreo-Martínez 239
14. Development of Alternative Proton Exchange Membranes
Based on Biopolymers for Microbial Fuel Cell Applications
Srinivasa R. Popuri, Alex J.T. Harewood, Ching.-Hwa Lee and
Shima L. Holder 256
15. Using Microbial Fuel Cell System as Biosensors
Tuoyu Zhou, Shuting Zhang, Huawen Han and Xiangkai Li 283
16. Sustainability Assessment of Microbial Fuel Cells
Surajbhan Sevda, Swati Singh, Vijay Kumar Garlapati, Swati Sharma,
Lalit Pandey, T.R. Sreekrishnan and Anoop Singh 313
Index 331
Editors Biography 335
CHAPTER
1
MFCs - From Lab to Field
Abhilasha Singh Mathuriya
Department of Biotechnology, School of Engineering and Technology,
Sharda University, Knowledge Park III, Greater Noida - 201306, India
Email: [email protected]
Introduction
In order to develop a green world in the future, research initiatives are
focused on alternate, renewable, and carbon neutral energy sources which
pose minimal or no negative environmental impact. Microbial fuel cells
(MFCs) are fairly contributing in this attempt. MFCs are bioelectrochemical
systems, used for the direct conversion of chemical energy of chemical
compounds into electricity using microorganisms (Allen and Bennetto 1993,
Kim et al. 1999, Shukla et al. 2004, Mathuriya and Yakhmi 2014).
A conventional two-chamber MFC contains an anodic and a cathodic
chamber separated by an ion exchange membrane (Bond and Lovley 2003,
Mathuriya and Sharma 2010a, Mathuriya 2016a). At the anode, electrons are
generated by metabolic activities of microorganisms when they metabolize
organic compounds. Those electrons travel through external circuit and
protons through membrane to cathode, where both react with oxygen to
form water (Bennetto 1990).
External Circuit
electrons
!
electrons
Anolyte (wastewater or
chemical compound) oxygen
carbon dioxide water
Anode Proton Exchange cathode
Membrane
Figure 1.1. Schematic representation of typical two-chambered microbial fuel cell.
2 Waste to Sustainable Energy
The basic reactions involved can be represented as (Jiang et al. 2013)
C H O + 6H O → 6CO + 24H+ + 24e- (E0 = 0.014 V) (1)
6 12 6 2 2
(Intermediate) + e- → (Intermediate) (2)
ox re
6O + 24H+ + 24e- → 12H O (E0 = 1.23 V) (3)
2 2
There are no set parameters to measure the performance of an MFC, since
the performance depends on many factors like the nature of electrochemical
reactions, type of electrode used, organic substrates, composition of the
microbial population, and architecture, etc. Therefore, different measures
might be taken in order to improve the MFC performance. Over the past
few years, researchers across the globe are engaged in an attempt to enhance
the efficiency and reliability of MFCs in different ways. This includes MFC
architecture, development of high efficiency electrode materials, operational
costs, and robust microbial community (Kaewkannetra et al. 2011, Qian et
al. 2011, Huang et al. 2012, Buitrón and Cervantes-Astorga 2013, Mathuriya
2016 a,b).
MFCs offer several attractive features, viz. (a) direct electricity generation
from chemical compounds which leads to high efficiency; (b) the chemical to
electricity conversion by MFCs is not limited by the Carnot cycle because
it does not involve the conversion of energy into heat—instead directly
into electricity and, a much higher conversion efficiency can be achieved
(70%) (Mathuriya and Yakhmi 2014); (c) owing to microbially operated
technology, operate effectively at ambient temperature; (d) quiet and safe
performance (Rabaey and Verstreate 2005), and (e) does not requires off-gas
treatment (Mathuriya and Sharma 2009). It is hypothesized that the amount
of electricity generated by MFCs in the wastewater treatment process can
reduce the power required in a conventional treatment process that involves
aerating of the activated sludge (Watanabe 2008).
Potential Areas for Microbial Fuel Cells Application
MFCs are witnessing rapid growth and their application aura is continuously
increasing. Some areas are discussed here.
Wastewater treatment: Wastewater generates from any combination of
domestic, commercial, industrial, or agricultural activities. Wastewater
retains complex chemical and biological matter, which can be invaluable
sources of energy, but due to random degradation create serious health,
sanitation, and environmental problems. Moreover, wastewater also hosts
innumerable extremophilic microbial flora, which can degrade those
complex matter. Developing a route to produce electricity from degradation
of complex matter in wastewater by microorganisms is the mover for the
development of MFCs (Mathuriya and Sharma 2009).
Wastewater treatment is the prime area of MFC application and MFCs
have proved themselves as efficient wastewater treatment systems (Kim et
al. 2004, Huang and Logan 2008, Mathuriya and Sharma 2009, Ieropoulos et
MFCs - From Lab to Field 3
al. 2013). Only this system can convert organic matter of waste directly into
electricity. MFCs have been reported to treat a wide range of wastewaters.
The list is too large to accommodate in the word limit of this chapter. Some
remarkable mentions are human feces wastewater (Fangzhou et al. 2011), food
processing wastewater (Mathuriya and Sharma 2010a, Velasquez-Orta et al.
2011), oilfield wastewater (Gong and Qin 2012), landfill leachate (Sonawane
et al. 2017), domestic wastewater (Ren et al. 2014), paper industry wastewater
(Mathuriya and Sharma 2009), swine wastewater (Ding et al. 2017), tannery
wastewater (Mathuriya 2014), brewery wastewater (Mathuriya and Sharma
2010b, Huang et al. 2011), refinery waste (Agarry 2017), synthesis gas (Mehta
et al. 2010), paracetamol (Zhang et al. 2015), several dyes viz. azo dyes (Sun
et al. 2011, Fang et al. 2013, Fang et al. 2017, Yuan et al. 2017), wastewaters
containing various heavy metals viz. Chromium (Ryu et al. 2011, Song et al.
2016), Vanadium (Qiu et al. 2017), Copper (Wu et al. 2016), Arsenic (Wang
et al. 2014), Silver (Choi and Cui 2012), Cobalt (Huang et al. 2013), and even
Uranium (Gregory et al. 2004).
Powering low energy devices: Electricity generation from any chemical
compound is the most fascinating feature of MFCs. MFCs have been
reported for the generation of electricity since 1910 (Potter 1910, Bond and
Lovley 2003, You et al. 2010, Mathuriya 2016a, Krieg et al. 2017). MFCs are
an attractive option as sustainable lower scale power supplies. Many studies
have successfully demonstrated the applications of MFCs in powering low-
power-consuming devices (Winfield et al. 2014) like sensors (Tommasi et al.
2014, Khaled et al. 2016), as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) sensors (Kim
et al. 2003a, Kharkwal et al. 2017), telecommunication systems (Tender et al.
2008, Thomas et al. 2013), mobiles and smart phones (Ieropoulos et al. 2013).
MFC-type BOD sensor developed by Kim et al. (2003a) was reported
to operate for over five years without remarkable maintenance, which is
longer than other types of BOD sensors in the market. MFCs can also be
used to monitor the presence of chemical toxicants (Jiang et al. 2017) viz.
formaldehyde (Davila et al. 2011), anaerobic digestion fluid (Liu et al. 2011),
heavy metal and phenol in the test water (Kim et al. 2003b, Tao et al. 2017),
toxic matter in potable water (Stein et al. 2012), and to detect illegal dumping
or pollution (Chang et al. 2004). Various microbial activity-monitoring
sensors (Lovley and Nevin 2016) were also developed in recent years.
Moreover, demonstration to apply MFCs in powering gadgets like mobile
phones (Ieropoulos et al. 2013, Walter et al. 2017) is making MFCs popular
among public.
Robotics: Autonomous robotics is a recent attention of scientists.
Conventionally robots are run by standard battery (Kluger 1997), which
require periodical manual input to change battery. MFCs can be used to
power such robots, especially to those assigned ‘start and forget’ missions
(Melhuish et al. 2006). Various generations of robots are reported to use MFCs
as their power source, such as Green bug robots (Wilkinson and Campbell
1996), Gastrobots (Kelly et al. 1999, Wilkinson 1999, 2000a), Gastronome