Electricity Production during Distillery Wastewater Treatment in a Microbial Fuel Cell Equipped with Low Cost PVA-Nafion-Borosilicate Membrane

Abstract

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) fabricated using Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-Nafion-borosilicate membrane was evaluated for distillery wastewater treatment at three different organic loadings of 2300 mgL (OL-1), 4200 mgL (OL-2) and 6300 mgL (OL-3) under 96 h batch mode of operation. The linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) study of the MFC revealed that anodic activity was enhanced when the amount of metabolite available was higher. The LSV results supported the power output achieved from MFC during polarization. Maximum power density of 4.3 Wm was obtained at substrate loading of 6300 mgL, which was 1.2 folds and 1.6 folds higher than that obtained at OL-2 and OL-1, respectively. Along with power output, MFC was capable of efficiently degrading organic matter present in wastewater in the range of 54.5 % to 64.25 %. Successful reduction of organic matter from distillery wastewater apart from power generation establishes MFC using PVA-Nafion-borosilicate membrane as a suitable low cost technology for real wastewater treatment.