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Published on: July 24, 2018
Interaction of bacteria and archaea in a microbial fuel cell with ITO anode
Qingqing Jiang1, Defeng Xing1, Lu Zhang1
1State Key Lab of Urban Water Resource and Environment (SKLUWRE), School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 2nd Campus of HIT Box 2614 No. 73 Huanghe Road Harbin 150090 China rnq@hit.edu.cn.
Abstract:
A microbial fuel cell with an indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass anode was used to study the mechanism of electricity generation and electron transfer of electrochemically active microbes (EAMs). A simple method of ITO anode pretreatment (pickling) was developed to improve the performance of the microbial fuel cell. After proper treatment, ITO-glass anodes maintained their conductivity with a slight increase in resistance. Using this pickling pretreatment, the ITO-glass microbial fuel cell with an anode area of only 8.3 cm2, was successfully initiated and obtained a stable voltage and power output of 418.8 mW m-2. The electrode material with pretreatment showed optimal performance for the in situ study of EAMs. DNA was extracted from various parts of the reactor and the microbial communities were analyzed. The results indicated that the large proportion of methane-related microbes on the cathode of the MFC was one of the reasons for its high COD removal and low columbic efficiency. ITO glass is suitable as an anode material for the in situ study of EAMs, and shows potential for practical application.
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