Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India.
Environ Technol. 2020 Aug;41(19):2546-2553. doi: 10.1080/09593330.2019.1575477. Epub 2019 Feb 12.
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a device that oxidizes the organic matter present in wastewater and simultaneously generates electricity from it. For practical applications, the power production of MFCs needs to be enhanced and the use of novel anode and cathode catalyst can certainly help in this regard. Such a novel catalyst, WO, was explored as both anode and cathode catalyst in this study. Performance of MFCs was enhanced when WO was used as an electrocatalyst. The maximum power density of MFC was increased by five times when WO was used as anode catalyst and by four times when it was used as cathode catalyst as compared to control MFC using electrode without any catalyst. Almost six times increment in maximum power production of MFC was observed when WO was used as catalyst on both the electrodes. Electrochemical analysis of WO also proved that it could enhance the current density of the modified electrode owing to its electrochemical catalytic properties. Furthermore, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of MFC having WO coated electrodes was also observed to be higher, thus suggesting an overall enhancement in the performance of MFC by the use of WO as an electrocatalyst.
微生物燃料电池（MFC）是一种将废水中存在的有机物氧化并同时从中产生电能的装置。对于实际应用，需要提高 MFC 的发电能力，而使用新型阳极和阴极催化剂肯定有助于这方面。在这项研究中，WO 作为一种新型催化剂，被探索用作阳极和阴极催化剂。当 WO 用作电催化剂时，MFC 的性能得到了增强。与使用没有任何催化剂的电极的对照 MFC 相比，当 WO 用作阳极催化剂时，MFC 的最大功率密度增加了五倍，当 WO 用作阴极催化剂时，MFC 的最大功率密度增加了四倍。当 WO 用作两个电极的催化剂时，MFC 的最大功率产生量增加了近六倍。WO 的电化学分析还证明，由于其电化学催化特性，它可以提高修饰电极的电流密度。此外，还观察到具有 WO 涂层电极的 MFC 的化学需氧量（COD）去除率也更高，因此表明通过使用 WO 作为电催化剂，MFC 的整体性能得到了提高。
