Issue 114, 2015

Sediment microbial fuel cells as a new source of renewable and sustainable energy: present status and future prospects

Abstract

Active biocatalysts such as microorganisms or enzymes liberate electrons while electron donors are consumed in biological fuel cells. Biological fuel cells are a novel technology producing bio-electrochemical power using various materials such as complex organic waste or natural organic matter under anaerobic anode conditions. Recently, great attention has been paid to biological fuel cells due to their mild operating conditions and use of a variety of biodegradable substrates as fuel. Sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) are a kind of microbial fuel cell (MFC) that can produce electrical current from the organic matter content of sediment using bacterial metabolism. SMFCs have been developed in the past decade to provide a renewable power source and organic matter removal. SMFCs differ from other MFCs due to their essentially complete anoxic conditions at the anode and their membrane-less structure. To further improve SMFC technology, this paper focuses on the limitations and challenges of SMFCs and collects the latest surveys in this field.

Graphical abstract: Sediment microbial fuel cells as a new source of renewable and sustainable energy: present status and future prospects

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
04 Aug 2015
Accepted
28 Sep 2015
First published
28 Sep 2015

RSC Adv., 2015,5, 94171-94183

Author version available

Sediment microbial fuel cells as a new source of renewable and sustainable energy: present status and future prospects

A. Zabihallahpoor, M. Rahimnejad and F. Talebnia, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 94171 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA15279H

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements