Modeling of Polarization Losses of a Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are promising for simultaneous treatment of wastewater and energy production. In this study, a mathematical model for microbial fuel cells with air cathodes was developed and demonstrated by integrating biochemical reactions, Butler–Volmer expressions and mass/charge balances. The model developed is focused on describing and understanding the steady-state polarization curves of the microbial fuel cells with various levels and methods of anode-biofilm growth with air cathodes. This polarization model combines enzyme kinetics and electrochemical kinetics, and is able to describe measured polarization curves for microbial fuel cells with different anode-biofilm growth. The MFC model developed has been verified with the experimental data collected. The simulation results provide insights into the limiting physical, chemical and electrochemical phenomena and their effects on cell performance. For example, the current MFC data demonstrated performance primarily limited by cathode electrochemical kinetics.

Reproducibility and robustness of microbial fuel cells technology

“…Most of publications are scientific and not technical [4,5], being focused on design parameters [6,7], selection of materials [8] and of selection of suitable operational conditions in order to enhance the MFC performance [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. A very low percentage of the publications are focused on the modelling of this technology [16][17][18], trying to shed light on the understanding of the processes that take place in the MFC and its dependence on the design and operation [19,20].…”

Investigation of multiphysics in tubular microbial fuel cells by coupled computational fluid dynamics with multi-order Butler–Volmer reactions

“…The improvement using a heterogeneous model is especially useful for predicting large-scale MFC performance because the systems are not well-mixed due to the operational limitations. Moreover, although the Butler-VolmerMonod equation has been applied in other published MFC models to represent substrate consumption, biomass growth, and electrochemical reactivity [29][30][31], a multi-order model has not been used in conjunction with CFD. Thus the coupling of CFD and the multi-order Butler-Volmer model presented in this paper can be used as a platform to accommodate more diverse electron transfer mechanisms and more complex flow conditions.…”