The Usage of Molasses and Mediators in Microbial Fuel Cells

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) have an important role in today’s research as clean energy sources. Microbial Fuel Cells enable the conversion of the chemical bond energy in organic materials to electrical energy by metabolic activities of microorganisms and, ensure solutions for wastewater treatment and electricity generation. The molasses has very high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and low pH values and is located among 17 wastewater polluting the environment. In the study, molasses medium was used in the anode in dual chamber MFC, the effect of neutral red (NR) and methylene blue (MB) were investigated.as mediator on voltage. The bacterial community of MFC was fed with fresh molasses medium in fed-batch system and the COD value was calculated as 14 g/L. At the end of the 30-day incubation period, the voltage values were determined as 281 mV, 463 mV, 477 mV in the mediatorless molasses medium, with NR and MB respectively. Also, the decolorization of mediator dyes were determined for NR and MB. Decolorization yield of NR and COD removal rate were determined as  %86 and %50 sequentially. In addition to this the decolorization yield and COD removal of MB were determined as %86 and %80 at 28 days incubation.

Keywords

• molasses,microbial fuel cells,microbial community,bioelectricity

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