Enhance Soil Remediation and Power Generation Capabilities of Plant Microbial Fuel Cells through PANI-CeO2 Modified Anode

Abstract

Heavy metal pollution in soil has become a serious problem affecting crop cultivation and human health. Plant microbial fuel cells (PMFCs) have great prospects in soil remediation and regenerative power generation. In order to improve the ability of PMFCs to decontaminate heavy metal contaminated soil and generate electricity simultaneously, a plant microbial fuel cell (PMFC) experimental system was constructed by using polyaniline and nanocerium oxide modified electrodes (PANI-CeO2/CF) as anodes, cadmium contaminated soil as substrate, and acclimated sludge as electrogenesis bacteria, and a flowerpot with epipremnum aureum as the reactor. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and Cd removal rate were used to characterize the electricity generation and soil remediation properties. The experimental results show that the removal rates of Cd in soil by PMFC using the PANI-CeO2/CF anode were 93.91%. Compared with the PMFC with the conventional CF anode, the output voltage of the PMFC with the PANI-CeO2 modified anode was increased by 307.2%, the equivalent internal resistance was reduced by 38.4%, and the Cd removal rate was increased by 53.8%. The anode modification based PANI-CeO2 significantly improved the power generation capacity and soil remediation effect of PMFC.