Performance of mediator-less double chamber microbial fuel cell-based biosensor for measuring biological chemical oxygen

Minh Hang Do; Huu Hao Ngo; Wenshan Guo; Soon Woong Chang; Dinh Duc Nguyen; Lijuan Deng; Zhuo Chen; Tien Vinh Nguyen

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111279

Performance of mediator-less double chamber microbial fuel cell-based biosensor for measuring biological chemical oxygen

J Environ Manage. 2020 Dec 15:276:111279. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111279. Epub 2020 Sep 3.

Authors

Minh Hang Do¹, Huu Hao Ngo², Wenshan Guo¹, Soon Woong Chang³, Dinh Duc Nguyen⁴, Lijuan Deng¹, Zhuo Chen⁵, Tien Vinh Nguyen¹

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NWS, 2007, Australia.
² Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NWS, 2007, Australia; NTT Institute of Hi-Technology, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. Electronic address: ngohuuhao121@gmail.com.
³ Department of Environmental Energy Engineering, Kyonggi University, 442-760, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Environmental Energy Engineering, Kyonggi University, 442-760, Republic of Korea; Institution of Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Viet Nam.
⁵ School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.

PMID: 32891031
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111279

Abstract

Recently, the microbial fuel cell-based biosensor has been considered as an attractive technology for measuring wastewater quality such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). In this study, a mediator-less double compartment MFC based biosensor utilizing carbon felt as an anode electrode and inoculated with mixed culture was developed to improve the real application of a rapid BOD detection. This study aims to: (i) establish the effect of the operating conditions (i.e., pH, external resistance, fuel feeding rate) on MFC performance; (ii) investigate the correlation between biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and signal output, and (iii) evaluate the operational stability of the biosensor. The presented result reveals that the maximum current and power production was obtained while 100 mM NaCl and 50 mM Phosphate buffer saline was used as a catholyte solution, neutral pH condition of media and fuel feeding rate at 0.3 mL min^-1. Notably, a wider range of BOD concentration up to 300 mg L ^-1 can be obtained with the voltage output (R² > 0.9901). Stable and steady power was produced by running MFC in 30 days when cells operated at 1000 Ω external resistance. Our research has some competition with the previous double chamber MFC in the upper limit of BOD detection. This results might help to increase the real application of MFC based BOD biosensor in real-time measurement.

Keywords: Biochemical oxygen demand; Bioelectricity; Biosensor; Nafion membrane; Wastewater management.

MeSH terms

Bioelectric Energy Sources*
Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis
Biosensing Techniques*
Electrodes
Oxygen / analysis

Substances

Oxygen