Utilization Of Polyanilion Modified Anode In Benthonic Microbial Fuel Cells And Its Performance Analysis

Benthonic microbial fuel cells obtain power through the microbial degradation of organic compounds in sedimentary mud, which is rich of substrate. For its long-term operation, low maintenance cost, and environment friendly, BMFC have a good research value and broad prospects for development. At present, for its low power density output and limiting running stability, benthonic microbial fuel cell cannot obtain widely practical application. The anode is one of the main factors that limit the power density output.In this research, the effect of anode materials, the effect of pretreatment methods of anode, and the effect of anode area ratio to the cell performance was examined. The results showed that battery performance is stable using carbon felt anode; the best electrode area ration is 1:1; the maximum open circuit voltage was obtained from the BMFC using carbon felt anode pretreated by 1 mol/L ammonia immersion.In order to improve the performance of anode, this study explored the PANI anode synthesized by different electrochemical methods, and further modified by PANI-Fe/Mn compound; the activity of the modified anode was tested, and cell performance with these anodes was examined. The results showed that PANI anode using ammonia post-processing has the best effect in improving battery performance,and 5.58 m W/m2 of maximum output power density was obtained; the polyaniline anode BMFC prepared by pulse potential method has the highest power density output of 9.93 m W/m2. The anode modified by PANI-Fe can further improve the performance of cells, and the 17.51 m W/m2 of maximum power density output is 8.11 times than that of control.For the nickel foam has high alkali resistance and good electric catalytic activity,this study employed foam nickel as anode material to construct BMFC with PANI and PANI-Mn modified anode. The results showed that PANI foam nickel anode has no effect in the electrode activity, but could improve the running stability of cells; the maximum power density output is 34.53 m W/m2. As BMFC with external load,BMFC with PNAI-Mn foam nickel anode has the highest average current density and average power density output, which is 38.0 m A/m2 and 6.69 m W/m2 respectively,and is 1.1 times and 1.2 times higher than that of PANI foam nickel anode BMFC.The electricity output of BMFC got a significant improvement.