Enhancement of power production with tartaric acid doped polyaniline nanowire network modified anode in microbial fuel cells

Bioresour Technol. 2015 Sep:192:831-4. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.05.105. Epub 2015 Jun 10.

Abstract

The feasibility to use tartaric acid doped PANI for MFC anode modification was determined. Uniform PANI nanowires doped with tartaric acid were synthesized and formed mesoporous networks on the carbon cloth surface. By using this tartaric acid doped PANI modified carbon cloth (PANI-TA) as the anode, the voltage output (435 ± 15 mV) and power output (490 ± 12 mW/m(2)) of MFC were enhanced by 1.6 times and 4.1 times compared to that of MFC with plain carbon cloth anode, respectively. Strikingly, the performance of PANI-TA MFC was superior to that of the MFCs with inorganic acids doped PNAI modified anode. These results substantiated that tartaric acid is a promising PANI dopant for MFC anode modification, and provided new opportunity for MFC performance improvement.

Keywords: Extracellular electron transfer; Microbial fuel cell; Organic acid; Polyaniline; Shewanella.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aniline Compounds / chemistry*
  • Bioelectric Energy Sources / microbiology*
  • Coated Materials, Biocompatible / chemical synthesis
  • Electrodes*
  • Energy Transfer / physiology
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Nanowires / chemistry*
  • Shewanella / physiology*
  • Tartrates / chemistry*

Substances

  • Aniline Compounds
  • Coated Materials, Biocompatible
  • Tartrates
  • polyaniline
  • tartaric acid