Construction and operation of freshwater sediment microbial fuel cell for electricity generation

In this work, sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) with granule activated carbon (GAC) cathode and stainless steel anode was constructed in laboratory tests and various factors on SMFC power output were investigated. The maximum power densities for the SMFC with GAC cathode was 3.5 mW m⁻², it was much higher than SMFC with round stainless steel cathode. Addition of cellulose reduced the output power from SMFC at the beginning of experiments, while the output power was found to increase after adding cellulose to sediments on day 90 of operation. On 160 day, maximum power density from the SMFC with adding 0.2% cellulose reached to 11.2 mW m⁻². In addition, the surface morphology of stainless steel anode on day 90 was analyzed by scanning electron microscope. It was found that the protection layer of the stainless steel as electrode in SMFCs was destroyed to some extent.