The Influence of pH Spitting on the Internal Resistance in Microbial Fuel Cells

DOI

10.2991/meic-15.2015.363How to use a DOI?

Keywords

internal resistance; pH spitting; biofouling; membrane; microbial fuel cells (MFC).

Abstract

Membrane separator in microbial fuel cell (MFCs) is one of the main factors that could significantly affect the performance of MFC. Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) are typically used in two-chamber microbial fuel cells to separate the anode and cathode chambers while to allow the transfer of protons from anode to the cathode. However, protons will accumulate in the anode chamber, and therefore and the pH balance will be broken if the MFC works for a long time. In this study, effects of two types of separator membranes (Proton Exchange Membrane; 0.45 m Synthetic Fabric Membrane) on the pH spitting and MFC performance were investigated. Membrane internal resistance, membrane biofouling and oxygen diffusion were also analyzed. The fouling layer attached on membranes consisted of microorganisms was demonstrated from imaging analysis coupled with SEM. We found that pH splitting might influence MFC internal resistance more than biofouling. This was attributed to the proton transfer process, which was influenced by cathode pH value.

Copyright

© 2015, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Songhe Zhang
AU  - Yuxin Hui
AU  - Bing Han
PY  - 2015/04
DA  - 2015/04
TI  - The Influence of pH Spitting on the Internal Resistance in Microbial Fuel Cells
BT  - Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Mechatronics, Electronic, Industrial and Control Engineering
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1587
EP  - 1591
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/meic-15.2015.363
DO  - 10.2991/meic-15.2015.363
ID  - Zhang2015/04
ER  -