Microbial fuel cell with Cu-B cathode powering with wastewater from yeast production

Abstract

With the increasing standard of living, energy consumption increases as well. So, waste production, including wastewater, increases as well. One of the types of wastewater is wastewater from yeast industry. Wastewater from this industry has not only a high pollutants load but it is produced in great amounts as well. Technical devices that can accomplish the wastewater treatment and electricity production from wastewater is a microbial fuel cell. In microbial fuel cells activated sludge bacteria can be used for electricity production during wastewater treatment. The possibility of using the Cu-B alloy as cathode catalyst for microbial fuel cells to wastewater treatment of wastewater from yeast industry is presented in this paper. The reduction time for COD with the use of microbial fuel cell with the Cu-B catalyst (with 5, 10 and 15% amount of B) is similar to the reduction time with aeration. The obtained power (4.1 mW) and the amount of energy (0.93 Wh) are low. But, if one can accept a longer COD reduction time, the obtained amount of energy will allow elimination of the energy needed for reactor aeration.