Scientific Research and Essays

  • Abbreviation: Sci. Res. Essays
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1992-2248
  • DOI: 10.5897/SRE
  • Start Year: 2006
  • Published Articles: 2767

Full Length Research Paper

A comparative study for electricity generation in microbial fuel cell reactor with and without mediators

Al-Shehri, A. N.1,2*, Ghanem, K. M.1,3 and Al-Garni, S. M.1
1Biological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2Biology Department, University College, University of Umm Al-Qura, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. 3Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, University of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 04 October 2011
  •  Published: 30 November 2011

Abstract

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) reactor with two compartments has been constructed from cheap materials and used for electricity generation from artificial mineral glucose medium (MGM) and test the adding or not adding  the mediators during four separate experiment. The maximum voltages yield at external resistance 30 Ω on the mediator - less experiments was 401 mV, while when the mediators have been methylene blue, neutral red and potassium ferricyanide the maximum voltages yield  were , 684, 482 and 523.6, respectively. The Coulombic efficiency in the mediator - less experiments 16.17%, while 19.74, 18.72 and 13.64%, respectively in the mediators experiments. Thereby it has proved that adding methylene blue as mediator for electrons shuttling optimized the voltage yield more than mediator - less by 70.57%, as well as more than the other tested mediators.

 

Key words: Electricity generation, mediator, mediator - less, microbial fuel cell, two - compartment.