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Power density enhancement of anion-exchange membrane-installed microbial fuel cell under bicarbonate-buffered cathode
Jingmei Piao1, Junyeong An, Phuc Thi Ha
1School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712, Korea.
Abstract:
We introduce a high-performance microbial fuel cell (MFC) that was operated using a 0.1 M bicarbonate buffer as the cathodic electrolyte. The MFC had a 136.42 mW/m(2) maximum power density under continuous feeding of 5 mM acetate as fuel. Results of the electrode potential measurements showed that the cathode potential of the bicarbonate-buffered condition was higher than the phosphate-buffered condition, although the phosphate condition had less interfacial resistance between the membrane and electrolyte. Therefore, we posit here that the increased power of the bicarbonate-buffered MFC may be caused by the higher cathode potential rather than by the interfacial membrane-electrolyte resistance.
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