Electrochemical and chemical enrichment methods of a sodic–saline inoculum for microbial fuel cells

Use of Novel Reinforced Cation Exchange Membranes for Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Samples were collected according to the procedure described previously by the authors [6] from the former Texcoco lake in a sterile anaerobic container and preserved aseptically. The sampling site is the dry bottom of a historically desiccated lake in central Mexico; the salts were accumulated in the process of desiccation, and the soils are known to be saline-sodic.…”

“…The most probable number (MPN) was measured following the same steps shown in a recent paper published by a part of the authors [6]. Briefly, an amount of 1 g of biofilm scraped from the bio-electrolysis cell was transferred into 99 mL of modified SL3 medium containing 15 mM of sodium acetate used as carbon source and 100 mM iron (III) citrate as terminal electron acceptor.…”

“…In our study we have characterized two different proton exchange membranes using the single chamber microbial fuel cells (SCMFC) described above with electrochemically enriched sodic saline inocula as biocatalyst [6]. A type of proton exchange membranes are, composite membranes based on poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) and, the other hand, Nafion® reinforced with PVA nanofibers.…”

“…Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have emerged as a promising technology for wastewater treatment as well as means of energy recovery by microorganisms, and they have become an intensive subject of research in bio-electrochemistry [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

“…The objective of a previous study of other members of this work was the comparison of three enrichment methods for soil inoculums from Texococo lake, México [6]. They characterized the purified inoculums with a single Nafion ® 117 membrane .…”