Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology is a novel bio-electrochemical approach utilizing anaerobic bacteria to harvest energy and simultaneously treat wastewaters. Universally, carbon based material (cloth, brush or rod) have been used as anode substrates. However, they limit the MFC performance due to lower surface areas for biofilm growth and electron transfer. This study investigated the use of activated carbon nanofibers (ACNF) as a novel anode for use in MFC systems, proposed to drop the internal resistance as a result of increased bioavailable surface area for electron transport. The significant results of this study favor ACNF over GAC and CC in terms of bacterial adhesion, power density estimates and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. This study has hence revealed the distinct advantages of ACNF in terms of biofilm growth, electron transfer, power generation and wastewater treatment, which possesses a great potential for large-scale efficient MFC systems to treat wastewaters.

Activate carbon nanofibers (ACNF): A novel anode material to improve the performance efficiency of microbial fuel cell (MFC)

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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