Scalability of self-stratifying microbial fuel cell: Towards height miniaturisation

Walter, Xavier Alexis; Santoro, Carlo; Greenman, John; Ieropoulos, Ioannis A.

Abstract

© 2019 The Authors The scalability of bioelectrochemical systems is a key parameter for their practical implementation in the real-world. Up until now, only urine-fed self-stratifying microbial fuel cells (SSM-MFCs) have been shown to be scalable in width and length with limited power density losses. For practical reasons, the present work focuses on the scalability of SSM-MFCs in the one dimension that has not yet been investigated, namely height. Three different height conditions were considered (1 cm, 2 cm and 3 cm tall electrodes). The normalised power density of the 2 cm and 3 cm conditions were similar either during the durability test under a hydraulic retention time of ≈39 h (i.e. 15.74 ± 0.99 μW.cm −3 ) and during the polarisation experiments (i.e. 27.79 ± 0.92 μW.cm −3 ). Conversely, the 1 cm condition had lower power densities of 11.23 ± 0.07 μW.cm −3 and 17.73 ± 3.94 μW.cm −3 both during the durability test and the polarisation experiment, respectively. These results confirm that SSM-MFCs can be scaled in all 3 dimensions with minimal power density losses, with a minimum height threshold for the electrode comprised between 1 cm and 2 cm.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 7, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jan 9, 2019
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jan 9, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 5, 2019
• Journal: Bioelectrochemistry
• Print ISSN: 1567-5394
• Electronic ISSN: 1878-562X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 127
• Pages: 68-75
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioelechem.2019.01.004
• Keywords: microbial fuel cell, urine treatment, scaling, self-stratification, power generation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/846061
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioelechem.2019.01.004
• Contract Date: Jan 9, 2019