Optimization of the Cell Structure in Microbial Fuel Cell

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  • 微生物燃料電池におけるセル構造の最適化
  • ビセイブツ ネンリョウ デンチ ニ オケル セル コウゾウ ノ サイテキ カ

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Abstract

  The world should sever the dependence of fossil fuel to solve serious global environmental issues. Recently, although the dissemination of the nuclear plant was promoted because of the low CO2 emission in the world, it will be controlled by the accident of the Fukushima nuclear plant due to the East Japan great earthquake. Therefore, renewable energies such as the sunshine, the wind forces and biomasses are paid to attention as an alternative energy of the fossil fuel and nuclear power, and the dissemination of the fuel cell such as Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells and Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells is greatly expected from the world, especially. However, these fuel cells are too expensive by use of the noble metal catalyst, a high manufacturing cost, a low lifetime and insufficient ensuring hydrogen. Therefore, as the development of a low-cost fuel cell is expected, microbial fuel cells (MFC) are paid to attention. The cost of MFCs can be reduced because microbes as a catalyst can be manufactured from the genetic operation at a low price, and organic waste such as sludge and food residue etc. become a fuel for MFC. Therefore, MFC are expected to apply to from large-scale sewage plant to a portable power source. However, the MFCs performances such as power density, stability, durability and so on are worse than that of other fuel cells and power source. Therefore, we aim to solve these issues by improving the mechanical factors. However, it is difficult to evaluate the performance of the MFCs accurately because the growth and extinction of a microbe greatly depend on the experimental condition such as temperature, power generation and fuel quantity etc. Wherein, we made two trial products of MFC that used the commercially available active dry yeast as an anode catalyst, evaluated its performance, and have extracted the problem of MFC. As a result, we obtained the max power of 0.85 - 1.0 mW/cm2 by two trial products of MFC. Moreover, the influence of the fuel diffusion polarization on the performance was larger than conventional fuel cells. It was clarified that the cell structure such as an interelectrode distance and a shape of fuel tank in each pole etc. influences the cell performance. Additionally, the fixation in electrode of microbe and the effective supply method to microbe of fuel should be further examined to improve the cell performance.

Journal

  • Journal of Smart Processing

    Journal of Smart Processing 1 (2), 93-98, 2012-03-20

    Smart Processing Society for Materials, Environment & Energy (High Temperature Society of Japan)

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