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A Study on Soil Microbial Fuel Cell for Producing Energy and Bioremediation

Afsham, Neda | 2011

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 42865 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Yaghmaei, Soheila; Roshandel, Ramin
  7. Abstract:
  8. With the current demands in alternative methods of energy production and increased utilization of existing energy sources, microbial fuel cells have become an important field of research. In a microbial fuel cell, organic and inorganic compounds can be oxidized by microbial catabolism at the anode to generate direct electricity. A kind of microbial fuel cell (MFC) is sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) consists of an anode electrode embedded in the anaerobic sediment and a cathode electrode suspended in the overlying aerobic water. microorganisms produce electrons by oxidation of organic or inorganic compounds in the sediment at anode electrode, while oxygen is reduced in the water by accepting electrons coming from the anode. Nitrate concentration in groundwater has been increasing across the world due to the growing usage of nitrogenous fertilizers and the discharge of domestic and industrial wastewater. microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology has been considered as one of the promising methods for nitrate removal from wastewater but the sediment microbial fuel cell have never been used for this purpose. In the current study, we developed a soil MFC , which used ground soil and ground water to generate electricity . First of all , the effect of cathode area and materials on the performance of the soil mfc has been studied .Then , nitrate was reduced in aerobic cathode at the rate of 37 mg nitrate/lit/day and 58 mg nitrate/lit/day in anaerobic cathode. The results suggest that SMFC can be an innovative and low-cost system, which can be used for in situ bioremediation of nitrate-contaminated groundwater. Besides, electricity is generated from soil.
  9. Keywords:
  10. Biological Treatment ; Bioremediation ; Nitrate Removal ; Sediment Microbial Fuel Cell ; Biocathode

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