Supercapacitive microbial fuel cell: Characterization and analysis for improved charge storage/delivery performance

Houghton, Jeremiah; Santoro, Carlo; Soavi, Francesca; Serov, Alexey; Ieropoulos, Ioannis; Arbizzani, Catia; Atanassov, Plamen

Abstract

© 2016 The Author(s) Supercapacitive microbial fuel cells with various anode and cathode dimensions were investigated in order to determine the effect on cell capacitance and delivered power quality. The cathode size was shown to be the limiting component of the system in contrast to anode size. By doubling the cathode area, the peak power output was improved by roughly 120% for a 10ms pulse discharge and internal resistance of the cell was decreased by ∼47%. A model was constructed in order to predict the performance of a hypothetical cylindrical MFC design with larger relative cathode size. It was found that a small device based on conventional materials with a volume of approximately 21cm3 would be capable of delivering a peak power output of approximately 25mW at 70mA, corresponding to ∼1300Wm−3.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 25, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 28, 2016
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Nov 25, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 25, 2016
• Journal: Bioresource Technology
• Print ISSN: 0960-8524
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 218
• Pages: 552-560
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2016.06.105
• Keywords: microbial fuel cell (MFC), supercapacitor (SC), electrode area, linear model, power performance
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/907590
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2016.06.105
• Related Public URLs: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5001197/
• Contract Date: Nov 25, 2016