Bioelectricity generation based on acid red 27 decolourization in microbial fuel cell

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is a device that generates electricity from the metabolism of bacteria simultaneously treats wastewater by decolourizing the azo dye in wastewater. In this work, the effect of different external loads and bacterial loads were examined. The maximum open circuit voltage generated was 390 mV by using 7 consortia of bacteria while the maximum current generated was 50 µA using 10 O resistor. 97% decolourization efficiency of 0.1 g/L of azo dye was achieved after 5 days of operation. Besides, the maximum current density and power density achieved were 17.9 µA/cm2 and 460 µW/cm2 respectively. Polarization curve was plotted and Scanning Electron Microscope was applied to visualize the bacterial community attachment onto the graphite felt electrode. Cyclic voltammetry was applied to study the redox properties of the Azo dye using microorganisms in MFC. Overall, these 7 bacterial strains used in this work showed the capability in decolourizing the Azo dye simultaneously producing electricity in MFC.