Agricultural Waste Powered Microbial Fuel Cell: Sustainable Conversion of Waste to Energy Tutut Arinda
Department of Agroindustrial Technology, Universitas Brawijaya
Abstract
Microbial fuel cell is a promising alternative technology for sustainable renewable energy production. Using agricultural waste to power microbial fuel cell coupling wastewater treatment process with energy generation. Agricultural waste is rich in organic pollutants, suitable substrate for bioelectricity generation in microbial fuel cell. Exoelectrogenic microorganisms in microbial fuel cell catalyse direct conversion of chemical energy in organic matters from agricultural waste into electrical energy. In this review, the role of agricultural waste from cattle manure, plant waste and food waste as a substrate in microbial fuel cell are discussed. The performance of microbial fuel cell using variety of agricultural waste are compared. Microbial fuel cell for agricultural waste treatment are discussed as stand-alone technology and integrated system. In the recent years, one of the bottleneck for microbial fuel cell scale up is high cost material. Agricultural waste derived biochar become one promising source for low cost material and has been applied in microbial fuel cell. This review discusses application of agricultural waste derived biochar in microbial fuel cell as catalyst, cathode material, anode material, and PEM material.
