Wastewater Treatment Using Dual-Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell with Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a biochemical treatment system in which the wastewater is treated by biodegradation of organic maters in peresence of bacteria while the electricity can be produced simultanously. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of a dual-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) for the removal of biodegradable waste in wastewater through COD measurement.At the same time, the amount of electricity produced was measured during the experimental evaluation. MFC was equipped with the nafion as a proton exchange membrane from the anode to the cathode and with the graphite as electrodes. Also, glucose, molasses, date syrup, meat wastewater (Sausages) were used as carbon source. The experiments were performed by applying the Saccharomyces cerevisiae as biocatalysts at room temperature and neutral pH. The performance of MFC was studied under different carbon sources with different nafion membranes (117, 112, 212) and two different inoculum biocatalyst conditions (2 and 5 volumetric percent). The ability of COD removal using S. cerevisiae and electricity generation were examined with different substrates. The results obtained from this study showed that the microbial fuel treatment system is an effective method to remove organic materes from wastewater. Maximum COD removal of about 91 percent were obtained in MFC when glucose Nafion membrane and inoculum catalyst were 117, and 5 volumetric percent, respectively. The electricity power density generated under this condition was about 78 mW/m2.