Abstract:
This research investigated the efficiency of Single Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (SCMFC) in electricity generation and wastewater treatment. In this work, the SCMFC was made from cylindrical acrylic with 13 cm. diameter, 56 cm. heights and total reactor volume was 7.4 litres. The anode was a graphite tube while the cathode was made of a carbon cloth coated with platinum catalyst. In the first experiment, the efficiency of SCMFC in electricity generation and wastewater treatment was tested and operated in batch condition. Artificial wastewater was prepared from sucrose solution to the COD concentration about 5,000 mg/l. The electrode size and distance between cathode and anode was fixed of 30 cm. The voltage data was automatically recorded by computer every hour, using 1 kΩ resistor as a load of the external resistance. The batch result revealed that maximum average voltage was 761 ± 35.75 mV which equal to maximum average current of 0.761 ± 0.04 mA. Moreover, the COD could effectively remove over 90.76% together with the electricity generation process. Then, the SCMFC was operated in continuous mode to discover for the best operation conditions. The best conditions were 424 cm² 10 cm. and 2.22 kg.COD/m³-day. The outcome clearly detected the maximum average current of 1.160 ± 0.03 mA, when the COD could effectively remove over 83.72%. Then, the SCMFC was operated in continuous mode with swine wastewater. The maximum average current of 1.356 ± 0.04 mA, when the COD could effectively remove over 92.54%.