Enhanced Coulombic efficiency and power density of air-cathode microbial fuel cells.pdf

Aa M a t a t 6 a e f P K 1 d t a g a a i ( i t a c 0 dJournal of Power Sources 171 (2007) 348–354 Enhanced Coulombic efficiency and power density of air-cathode microbial fuel cells with an improved cell configuration Yanzhen Fan, Hongqiang Hu, Hong Liu ? Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, 116 Gilmore Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA Received 18 May 2007; received in revised form 11 June 2007; accepted 12 June 2007 Available online 3 July 2007 bstract Single chamber air-cathode microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that lack a proton exchange membrane (PEM) hold a great promise for many practical pplications due to their low operational cost, simple configuration and relative high power density. One of the great challenges for PEM-less FC is that the Coulombic efficiency is much lower than those containing PEM. In this study, single-chamber PEM-less MFCs were adapted by pplying a J-Cloth layer on the water-facing side of air cathode. Due to the significant reduction of oxygen diffusion by the J-Cloth, the MFCs with wo-layers of J-Cloth demonstrated an over 100% increase in Coulombic efficiency in comparison with those without J-Cloth (71% versus 35%) t the same current density of 0.6 mA cm?2. A new cell configuration, cloth electrode assembly (CEA), therefore, was designed by sandwiching he cloth between the anode and the cathode. Such an MFC configuration greatly reduced the internal resistance, resulting in a power density of 27 W m?3 when operated in fed-batch mode and 1010 W m?3 in continuous-flow mode, which is the highest reported power density for MFCs nd more than 15 times higher than those reported for air-cathode MFCs using similar electrode materials. This study indicates that the Coulombic fficiency and power density of air-cathode MFCs can be improved significantly using an inexpensive cloth layer, which greatly increases the easibility for the practical applications of MFCs. ublished by Elsevier B.V. ctrode b c s p l d p