Chakma Ripel, Hossain M Khalid, Paramasivam Prabhu, Bousbih R, Amami Mongi, Toki G F Ishraque, Haldhar Rajesh, Karmaker Ashish Kumar
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology Gazipur 1707 Bangladesh.
Institute of Electronics Atomic Energy Research Establishment Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission Dhaka 1349 Bangladesh.
Glob Chall. 2025 Apr 16;9(5):2500004. doi: 10.1002/gch2.202500004. eCollection 2025 May.
Microbial fuel cell (MFC), a clean and promising technology that has the potential to tackle both environmental degradation and the global energy crisis, receives tremendous attention from researchers over recent years. The performance of each system component, including the membrane and electrode utilized in MFCs, has a great effect on the efficiency of converting chemical energy found in organic waste to power generation through bacterial metabolism. The MFCs have diverse applications that are growing day by day in developed countries. This review discusses recently available various potential applications including wastewater treatment, biohydrogen production, hazardous waste removal, generation of bioelectricity, robotics, biosensors, etc. There are still several challenges (e.g., system complexity, economic, commercialization, and other operational factors) for large-scale practical applications, particularly for relatively low power output and delayed start-up time, which is also reported in this review article. Moreover, the operational factors (e.g., electrode materials, proton exchange system, substrate, electron transfer mechanism, pH, temperature, external resistance, and shear stress and feed rate) that affect the performance of MFCs, are discussed in detail. To resolve these issues, optimizations of various parameters are also presented. In the previously published studies, this paper indicates that MFCs have demonstrated power densities ranging from 2.44 to 3.31 W m , with Coulombic efficiencies reaching up to 55.6% under optimized conditions. It is also reported that MFCs have achieved the removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), and antibiotics up to 93.7%, 70%, and 98%, respectively. Finally, this paper highlights the future perspective of MFCs for full-scale applications.
微生物燃料电池（MFC）是一项清洁且前景广阔的技术，有潜力应对环境恶化和全球能源危机这两大问题，近年来受到了研究人员的极大关注。MFC系统的每个组件的性能，包括所使用的膜和电极，对通过细菌代谢将有机废物中的化学能转化为电能的效率都有很大影响。MFC在发达国家有着日益增多的各种应用。本文综述了近期各种潜在的应用，包括废水处理、生物制氢、危险废物去除、生物电生成、机器人技术、生物传感器等。大规模实际应用仍存在若干挑战（例如系统复杂性、经济、商业化及其他运行因素），特别是功率输出相对较低和启动时间延迟的问题，本文也对此进行了报道。此外，还详细讨论了影响MFC性能的运行因素（例如电极材料、质子交换系统、底物、电子转移机制、pH值、温度、外部电阻以及剪切应力和进料速率）。为解决这些问题，还提出了对各种参数的优化。在先前发表的研究中，本文指出MFC在优化条件下的功率密度范围为2.44至3.31W/m²，库仑效率高达55.6%。据报道，MFC对化学需氧量（COD）、总有机碳（TOC）和抗生素的去除效率分别高达93.7%、70%和98%。最后，本文强调了MFC大规模应用的未来前景。
