Conversion of waste water sludge to electricity by Biological Fuel Cell

Abstract

The depletion of non-renewable energy resources leads us to discover an alternate eco-friendly fuel. Objective of this study to design Biological Fuel Cell (BFC) whichare bioelectrochemical reactors in which chemical energy stored in "organic compounds" are converted through "biocatalytic oxidation" by microorganisms. which contains two working electrodes (cathode and anode) to generate electricity simultaneous west water treatment and to select the most efficient microorganism to generate electricity . In this technology we used west water sludge which successfully generated a power of (0.4-3) V and current (0.6-0.89) mA. Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) define as the oxygen essential to oxidize organic material in water and convert it to inorganic mater under reaction conditions of time, temperature and availability of oxidation agents was 85%, TDS which define as the combined content of all inorganic and organic substances contained in a liquid, removal efficiency was 55%. Different isolates of microorganisms were isolated which are :Saccharomyces cervisia , Pseudomonas putida, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Aspergillus niger,E.coli, and Saccharomyces cervisia showed the most efficient isolate to generate electricity. This study insure the ability of (BFC) to treat waste water successfully and the microorganisms which exist in waste water sludge responsible of electricity generation in which (+ve ion) released from the fermentation process.