Received: Apr 27, 2023 / Published: Dec 29, 2023
Combined systems for wastewater treatment and resource recovery have been developed in many countries. However, systems for energy generation are still underdeveloped. This research was conducted to evaluate the possibility of electric potential generation from wastewater using a microbial fuel cell system (MFC). The simple two-chamber apparatus (2 liters) was fed with wastewater collected from dormitory discharge. Three batch experiments were carried out with 2 liters of wastewater with an influent concentration of 518 mg L-1 BOD5 and 750 mg L-1 COD. The results showed that the microbial fuel cell system generated a potential from 0.29 to 0.45 V for 7 days in the presence of 1.0-1.5% (v/v) Bacillus subtilis while this potential was not obtained in the case when microbes were not added. The highest removal efficiencies of BOD5 and COD reached 56% and 63%, respectively. It was found that the potential dropped to almost zero in all of the treatments while the ratio of BOD:COD was 0.83 and the concentration of BOD was around 230 mg L-1, indicating that other governing factors may have an impact on potential electricity generation. Therefore, further studies on the effects of the operating conditions and equipment should be comprehensively studied.
