Improving fermentation industry sludge treatment as well as energy production with constructed dual chamber microbial fuel cell

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells offer a breakthrough for treatment of waste content coupled with energy generation. However, their applications are mostly limited to laboratories. Present research is focused on conducting the biological conversion of sludge originated from fermentation industry using microbial fuel cell (MFC). The efficiency of MFC was studied at different operating and nutritional conditions including pH, aeration rate and substrate concentration with biocatalyst Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The optimized conditions in terms of yielding maximum power density of 610 ± 30 mW/m2 were reported at substrate concentration of 60% at 160 ml/min aeration rate and pH of 6, corresponding to a current density of 994 ± 41 mA/m2. Results suggested that utilization of fermented sludge in MFC could give direction to handle the problem of fermentation industries and also to overcome a small fraction of energy crisis.