Development of microbial fuel cell as a contribution to renewable energy sources

Abstract

Renewable energy plays an important role in future energy planning. Due to the changes in environment, shortage of fossil fuel, increase in carbon foot printing and the rising demand of sustainable energy generation there is a need of new energy generation resources and research. Hence, the main aim of proposed research is to develop microbial fuel cell for clean energy generation. There is a need of alternative energy sources with less cost to meet the future energy demands. Also, the waste management is a bigger issue around the globe. As Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) are less expensive and are with zero carbon foot printing it is considered as an emerging clean and alternative mean of energy generation. Also, the waste management is becoming important issue. To utilize waste material for energy generation is possible with bacteria present in waste material. The proposed research tested microbial fuel cell for household waste with use of carbon cloth electrodes. This paper presents the microbial fuel cell processes for different types of waste materials and pilot project execution is successful in terms of energy generation. The aim of the development of duel chamber microbial fuel cell is to contribute to the household electrification at pilot project level and further to that analyze the feasibility for future enhancements. The paper discusses the detail execution methodology for efficient use of waste materials in semi-solid and liquid form. The proposed research will be very useful as a source of renewable energy. More precisely, in future it is possible to generate independent household electrification with such options.