MICROBIAL FUEL CELL - AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY FOR EXPLOITING THE CATABOLIC POTENTIAL OF BACTERIAL ISOLATES
Sheetal Sivankutty, Athul Hari, Anoop Madhavankutty and Jayachandran K.*
ABSTRACT
Microbial fuel cells are devices that use microbes as the catalyst for oxidizing organic matter to generate
electricity. The present work focuses on the construction of a novel microbial fuel cell (MFC) with stainless steel
as electrodes, 0.20 μm syringe filter as microbial filter and polyacrylic sheet as the material of construction.
Phenol degrading strain Alcaligenes sp. d2 was used to degrade phenol in the MFC. Working of the MFC was
standardized and current generation at various intervals of phenol degradation was studied. Maximum voltage
output was obtained in the 32 hours of incubation of the microbe in the medium where phenol served as the only
source of carbon. The power density was found to be 0.7875 mW/cm2. Phenol degradation studies were carried
out in MFC and also under optimal conditions in the flask for comparison. Comparative study of degradation rate
and pattern were made on biodegradation of phenol inside the MFC and also in the optimized conditions in flask.
FTIR analysis of the ether extract biodegraded phenol and spectrophotometric estimation of phenol were done and
it was found that degradation rate in the MFC is little lower than that of flask system. However the MFC systems
generate sufficient current during the degradation of phenol, which might be trapped for other applications.
Further characterization of MFC based on operating conditions may improve the power generation from the
system with the same substrate.
Keywords: Microbial fuel cell, phenol biodegradation, Alcaligenes sp. d2, current generation.
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