Electricity production from municipal solid waste using microbial fuel cells

The organic content of municipal solid waste has long been an attractive source of renewable energy, mainly as a solid fuel in waste-to-energy plants. This study focuses on the potential to use microbial fuel cells to convert municipal solid waste organics into energy using various operational conditions. The results showed that two-chamber microbial fuel cells with carbon felt and carbon felt allocation had a higher maximal power density (20.12 and 30.47mWm(-2) for 1.5 and 4L, respectively) than those of other electrode plate allocations. Most two-chamber microbial fuel cells (1.5 and 4L) had a higher maximal power density than single-chamber ones with corresponding electrode plate allocations. Municipal solid waste with alkali hydrolysis pre-treatment and K3Fe(CN)(6) as an electron acceptor improved the maximal power density to 1817.88mWm(-2) (similar to 0.49% coulomb efficiency, from 0.05-0.49%). The maximal power density from experiments using individual 1.5 and 4L two-chamber microbial fuel cells, and serial and parallel connections of 1.5 and 4L two-chamber microbial fuel cells, was found to be in the order of individual 4L (30.47mWm(-2)) > serial connection of 1.5 and 4L (27.75) > individual 1.5L (20.12) > parallel connection of 1.5 and 4L (17.04) two-chamber microbial fuel cells . The power density using municipal solid waste microbial fuel cells was compared with information in the literature and discussed.