Recent advancements in microbial fuel cells: A review on its electron transfer mechanisms, microbial community, types of substrates and design for bio-electrochemical treatment

Abstract

The development in urbanization, growth in industrialization and deficiency in crude oil wealth has made to focus more for the renewable and also sustainable spotless energy resources. In the past two decades, the concepts of microbial fuel cell have caught more considerations among the scientific societies for the probability of converting, organic waste materials into bio-energy using microorganisms catalyzed anode, and enzymatic/microbial/abiotic/biotic cathode electro-chemical reactions. The added benefit with MFCs technology for waste water treatment is numerous bio-centered processes are available such as sulfate removal, denitrification, nitrification, removal of chemical oxygen demand and biological oxygen demand and heavy metals removal can be performed in the same MFC designed systems. The various factors intricate in MFC concepts in the direction of bioenergy production consists of maximum coulombic efficiency, power density and also the rate of removal of chemical oxygen demand which calculates the efficacy of the MFC unit. Even though the efficacy of MFCs in bioenergy production was initially quietly low, therefore to overcome these issues few modifications are incorporated in design and components of the MFC units, thereby functioning of the MFC unit have improvised the rate of bioenergy production to a substantial level by this means empowering application of MFC technology in numerous sectors including carbon capture, bio-hydrogen production, bioremediation, biosensors, desalination, and wastewater treatment. The present article reviews about the microbial community, types of substrates and information about the several designs of MFCs in an endeavor to get the better of practical difficulties of the MFC technology.

Keywords: Bioenergy; Design of microbial fuel cells; Microorganisms; Substrates; Wastewater.