Indian Journal of Advances in Chemical Science Volume: 6, Issue 3: , August 2018

ISSN No.: 2320-0898 (Print); 2320-0928 (Electronic)

DOI: 10.22607/IJACS.2018.603002

Review Article

With ever-increasing demand in the energy needs along with the growing population, there is a greater thrust for the sustainable energy production. Recently, there is a growing interest in microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology across the world for the production of bioenergy from biowastes. An MFC is a device that converts chemical energy from the substrate into electrical energy by the action of microorganisms. A typical MFC consists of anode and cathode chambers, physically separated by a proton-exchange membrane, and substrate. Anode chamber is made completely anaerobic, whereas cathode chamber is made aerobic. It uses an active microorganism as a biocatalyst in an anaerobic anode compartment for the production of bioelectricity. The energy conversion efficiency in MFC is far better than conventional fossil fuels, which is around 60%. MFCs operate well in mild conditions, 20–40°C and also at a pH of 7. Mainly the MFCs can be used to generate bioelectricity, to produce biohydrogen, used in wastewater treatment, and also used in biosensors. Recently, the feasibility of using composite metal-carbon, metal-polymer, polymer-carbon, polymer-polymer, and carbon-carbon materials in MFCs has been investigated. Some of the materials such as carbon nanotube (CNT)/polyaniline composite, and polypyrrole-coated CNTs composite for anode play a major role in producing maximum power density, maximum current density, and max voltage. This paper mainly deals with the recent developments and their interrelated challenges including the use of polymers in MFCs for producing bioelectricity from various biowastes.

Key words: Microbial fuel cell, Applications of microbial fuel cell, Bioelectricity production, Waste to energy, Polymers in microbial fuel cell.

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