Electricity Generation And Decontamination Properties Study Of A Dual-Chamber Microbial Fuel Ceil Using Phenol As The Fuel

The serious environmental pollution problem and the lack of energy resourcesupply have become the two major constraints of global economic development. InMFC, the organic pollutants in wastewater can be catalytic oxidation under the actionof microorganisms, the electrons are released after the oxadation of substrate and thentransfered along the respiratory chain of microorganisms to the anode, then theelectrons are transfered along the external circuit and accepted by cathode electronacceptor and formed a loop, and then the clean energy-electricity is produced. Inprinciple, this can alleviate the two problems mentioned in the front to some extent,therefore, MFC has drawn wide interests in recent years.In a wide variety of organic wastewater, phenolic wastewater is toxicity and itsharm is serious, so people have taken more attention on the treatment of this kind ofwastewater. With the development of various types of organic industry, the sourcesand types of phenolic wastewater are increasing, although there are many phenolicwastewater treatment methods nowerdays, most of the operating conditions are acuityand usually produce refractory intermediates in the process and lead to secondarypollution, which does not conform to today’s sustainable development philosophy. Soto develop a kind of phenolic wastewater treatment method which is operated in mild operating conditions and of which the process is environmental protection is ourpursuit goal. In recent years, people have tried to use MFC technology to deal withphenolic wastewater, and got good results, but the related theory and technology arestill not perfect and required further study and discussion.In this paper, we used phenol as the fuel, Ti/SnO2-Sb2O5/PbO2as the cathode andbuilt a dual-chamber MFC. We investigated the feasibility of using the biofilmelectrode which was made by the biofilmelectrode process as the anode of MFC, andalso examined the influences of biofilm formation method, biofilm formation time,the type of anode material, anode surface area and air agitation on the internalresistance and electricity generation performance of MFC. Finally we analyzed thedecontamination ability of the anode and cathode of the MFC, the results indicatedthat:(1) It could achieve power output using the biofilm electrode which was made bythe biofilmelectrode process as the anode of MFC, and the biofilm electrode made bybiofilmelectrode process had better electricity generation performance than that madeby natural adsorption process.(2) The biofilm formation time affected the electricity generation ability of MFC,the best biofilm formation time was8days in this paper, and the correspondingmaximum power density and internal resistance were39mW/m2and3000Ωrespectively.(3) When nitrogen was passed through the anolyte, the electricity generationability of MFC was not improved, but when air was passed through the catholyte, theelectricity generation ability of MFC was greatly improved.(4) The type and surface area of anode material affected the electricity generationability of MFC, the order of anode material corresponding to electricity generationability of MFC from good to bad was carbon felt>graphite>titanium mesh>titaniumfoam. With the increasing of the anode surface area, the electricity generation abilityof MFC first increased and then decreased, the best anode surface area was2*2cm2inthis paper.(5) The anode and cathode of MFC could generate energy and remove phenol efficiently at the same time, and there is no accumulation of intermediates, so it is anenvironmental friendly phenol wastewater treatment method.