Issue 45, 2017

A monolithic air cathode derived from bamboo for microbial fuel cells

Abstract

To simplify the cathode fabrication, we herein report a bamboo charcoal tube-derived (BCT) air cathode for microbial fuel cells (MFCs). This monolithic cathode was prepared by carbonizing a bamboo tube in a N2 atmosphere at 900 °C. The scanning electron microscope indicates that the porous structure of the BCT cathode can provide possible channels for oxygen supply and proton transfer, and therefore can offer the formation of the triple phase interfaces required for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in the bulk of BCT. It is also shown that compared to the cathode with bamboo charcoal powder (BC) and Pt/C, the BCT cathode exhibited the lowest oxygen mass transfer coefficient of 4.5 × 10−5 cm s−1. Additionally, the rotating ring-disk electrode tests demonstrate that the BCT cathode exhibited a considerable activity toward ORR. Consequently, the MFC with BCT delivered a comparable maximum power density (40.4 ± 1.5 W m−3) to that with Pt/C (37.7 ± 2.5 W m−3) and the highest coulombic efficiency of 55.87 ± 1.0% as compared with the MFCs with BC (29.9 ± 0.4%) and Pt/C (17.2 ± 0.4%). These results indicate that BCT could serve as a low cost, simple fabrication and high-performance alternative cathode for MFCs.

Graphical abstract: A monolithic air cathode derived from bamboo for microbial fuel cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Apr 2017
Accepted
18 May 2017
First published
31 May 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 28469-28475

A monolithic air cathode derived from bamboo for microbial fuel cells

W. Yang, J. Li, L. Zhang, X. Zhu and Q. Liao, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 28469 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA04571A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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