Characterization of generated Voltage, Current, Power and Power Density from Cow Dung using Double Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

The present work deals with the fabrication of a laboratory scale double chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) to generate energy from waste. The experiment was performed to generate electricity from locally available cow dung as substrate using the fabricated MFC. The device was operated under anaerobic condition at varying time duration of 6 days. PVC pipe was used to make a salt bridge using agarose and potassium chloride. The experimental reading was recorded at an interval of 1 &1/2 hrs. The performance of MFC was evaluated by characterizing the generated voltage, current, power and surface power density. It was observed that despite of high impedance of the substrate, all the generated parameters have shown maximum values at day 5 and then a decline in trend was observed on 6 days onwards. The corresponding maximum values of the generated parameters are 0.804V, 0.0105µA, 0.008442µW and 0.000938mW/m2. The obtained graphs of voltage, current, power and surface power density were also found to have similar pattern. Thus this study has demonstrated that the fabricated MFC can be used for electrical energy generation from cow dung and other biowaste.