Sustainable synthesis of novel carbon microwires for the modification of a Ti mesh anode in bioelectrochemical systems

Abstract

Herein, an effective method was developed to integrate carbon microwires on Ti mesh (denoted as CM/TiM) to fabricate high-performance anodes with long-time stability in microbial fuel cell. CM/TiM was synthesized by colonizing filamentous fungi on the bread modified Ti mesh followed by carbonization, which could convert the attached mycelium into carbon microwires (denoted as CM). Benefiting from the biocompatibility and 3D interlaced structure of carbon microwires, the biomass accumulation (1027 ± 83 μg cm^-2) of CM/TiM have been significantly improved nearly 3 folds, thus the fabricated CM/TiM demonstrated 2-fold higher current density (12.19 ± 0.07 A m^-2) with significantly increased stability compared with TiM. Therefore, the present high power output, chemical stability and hydrophilic carbon microwires make CM/TiM stable, scalable and environmentally sustainable anodes in bioelectrochemical systems.

Keywords: Bioelectrochemical systems; Carbon microwires; Stable; Sustainable; Titanium mesh.