Background: Poultry droppings from poultry farms and rice husks obtained from rice milling process are generally considered as wastes and discarded in Nigeria. Although many studies have shown that microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can generate electricity from organic wastes, little or no study have examined MFCs for generating electricity from poultry droppings and rice husk as electrode material. Findings: Laboratory-scale double-chamber MFCs were inoculated with concentrations of poultry droppings wastewater and supplied with rice husk charcoal as anode and cathode electrodes for electricity generation. Power outputs and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal efficiencies were compared between MFCs using rice husk charcoal (RHCE) as electrode and those using carbon cloth (CCE) as electrodes. The RHCE-MFC 2 containing 477 mg L −1 dissolved organic carbon produced a volumetric power density of 6.9 ± 3.1 W m −3 which was higher than the control and the CCE-MFCs by a factor of 2 and achieved at DOC removal efficiencies of 40 ± 1.2%. Conclusions: The results suggest that poultry droppings wastewater is a feasible feedstock for generating electricity in MFCs. The findings also suggest that rice husk charcoal is a potentially useful electrode material in MFCs.

Reduction of H partial pressure by archaea is an efficient approach in improving power output in a glucose-fed MFC system using Geobacter sp. as an inoculum.

Two H-type dual-chambered glucose-fed MFC reactors, each with a working volume of 250 ml designated as GPWW (enriched from garri wastewater) and the other as DWW (enriched from domestic wastewater) were constructed under same conditions and the anodes were continuously fed with synthetic medium (SM) at a flow rate of 0.7 ml min -1 . An average power density (Pd) of 1.5 ± 1.39 W/m 3 for GPWW and 0.6 ± 0.6 W/m 3 for DWW was observed in 150 days of operation. The peak biomass density for DWW was significantly (P < 0.05 T-test) higher than that of GPWW by a factor of 2 (8.99mg versus 3.4 BSA/total anode respectively) on day 120 suggesting that more biomass was formed on DWW than GPWW reactor. This indicates that exo-electrogens in DWW reactor directed more of electron flow to cell synthesis rather than to current. The archaea footprints detected on the anodes were limiting factors in current generation. One vital milestone in this study is the discovery of the potential of garriprocessing wastewater as a veritable substrate in microbial fuel cell technology.