SURANAREE UNIVERSITY OF TECNOLOGY Institute of Agricultural Technology School of Biotechnology

Thesis Proposal

Microbial Fuel Cells: Conversion of Organic Matter to Electricity เซลลเชอเพลงจ ลนทรย : การเปลยนแปลงของสารอนทรยไปเปนกระแสไฟฟา

Asst. Prof. Apichat BoontawanJiraphorn Lubsungnoen M5430116

Content

• Background • Purpose• Literature Review• Material & Method• Expected Result• Plan

• Fossil fuels was decreased• Limited energy source• Global energy crisis• Environmental problems • High potential of new energy source

and environmental friendly• Renewable bioenergy as alternative energy.

Background

• Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is one choice that has received attention as alternative energy in directly generating electricity from organic matters.

• MFC is bioreactor that converts chemical energy in the chemical bonds in organic compounds to electrical energy through catalytic reaction of microorganisms under anaerobic condition.

What’s Microbial fuel cell ?

The principle of MFC.• MFC consists of an anode, a cathode, a proton

or cation exchange membrane and an electrical circuit.

• A large number of substrates have been explored as feed use in MFC such as glucose, acetate ,acetic acid etc.

• Various of wastewater have been used as substrates in MFCs which providing a good source of organic matter for electricity production and accomplish wastewater treatment simultaneously, thus may offset the operation costs of wastewater treatment plant.

Purpose of the study

• To examine whether electricity could be generated from ethanol wastewater.

• To examine efficiency of remove and degradation products of wastewater from ethanol production .

• To examine microbial population that has efficient to produce electricity.

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Starch processing waste water Inoculums source >> Starch processing waste water

• COD >> (initial )1700 mg l ¯ ¹ /(removal ) >> 50 mg l ¯ ¹• Max. Current density >> 0.2 mA

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Tapioca starch waste water Inoculums source >> Saccharomyces cereviceae

• COD >> No data • Max. Current density >> 0.12 A • Power density >> 60.64 W/m²

• Voltage >> 0.55 V

Literature Review

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Tapioca starch waste water Inoculums source >> Mixed bacteria culture

• COD >> removal 33.95 % from 5757 mg/L• Power density >> 860 µW/m²

• Coulomb afficiency >> 89.03 %

Literature Review

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Synthetic waste water with molasses and urea Inoculums source >> Anaerobic mixture from waste water plant

• COD >> remove 80 % from 6,000 mg/L• Power density >> 2.9 mW/m²

• Current intensity >> 0.24 mA

Literature Review

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Starch processing waste water Inoculums source >> Starch processing waste water

• COD >> remove 98 %• Power density >> 239.4 mW/m²

• Current intensity >> 893.3 mA/m²

• Voltage output >> 490.8 mV

Literature Review

Literature Review

• Substrate >> Glucose Inoculums source >> Ethanol processing waste water

• COD >> remove 74.35 % from 330 – 340 mg l ¯¹• Power density >> 1.11 W/m³

• Voltage output >> 490.8 mV

Literature Review

Material and Method

• MFCs configurations • Wastewater and Organic substrates. • FPMFCs operation • Analyze and Calculation

Flat plate microbial fuel cells (FPMFCs)

Wastewater and Organic Substrates.

• Ethanol wastewater will collect from the fermentation laboratory of SUT .

• Wastewater use as the inoculums for the reactor and as substrates.

• Organic Substrates will use glucose .

• In a medium containing nutrients, minerals , vitamins stock solution and a phosphate buffer (PBS)

FPMFCs operation

• FPMFCs operation • The system will operate in a temperature

controlled room (30° C).

• The reactor will inoculate with wastewater and operate in continuous flow mode.

Analyses

• The COD of the wastewater and other organic compounds will measure according to standard close reflux method.

• The cell voltage change and the power generation over the resistor at a constant resistance (500Ω) are continuously will monitor during the period of digestion using digital millimeter.

Electric power calculation

• Unit of electric power in MFC usually using power density : are of anode unit (W/m²) and power density per volume of MFC unit (W/m³ ).

• Coulombic efficiency ( CE) value that should calculate because CE value is show performance of electricity producing and performance of electron transfer from substrate to electrode give the energy as product .

Bacterial community structure, compartmentalization andactivity in a microbial fuel cell

• To characterize bacterial populations and their activities within a microbial fuel cell (MFC), using cultivation-independent and cultivation approaches.

Enrichment of the microbial community in the MFC• Electron microscopic observations showed that the

fuel cell electrode had a microbial biofilm attached to its surface with loosely associated microbial clumps.

• Microscopy • Low-vacuum electron micrographs (LVEM)• Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) • Transmission electron microscopy ( TEM)• Confocal scanning laser microscope (CSLM)

The samples were stained with LIVE BacLight bacterial gram stain kit (L-7005; Molecular Probes)

Imaging of MFC biofilms

Community structure of the MFC

• Community structure of the MFC determined by analyses of bacterial 16S rRNA gene libraries and anaerobic cultivation showed excellent agreement with community profiles from denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis.

Expected results

• MFCs will be able to degrade biological waste as well as generate electricity products of wastewater from ethanol production.

• MFCs application on wastewater treatment from ethanol production will be able to improve the research on invention has high efficiency to treat wastewater which is possible to scale- up for practical application.

Research plans

Work plan semester 1 semester 2 semester 3

1 MFC construction and operation

2. Data of wastewater from

ethanol production

3. MFCs performances

4. Analysis all of parameter data

and

5. Result analysis and conclusion