Performance and microbial community of carbon nanotube fixed-bed microbial fuel cell continuously fed with hydrothermal liquefied cornstalk biomass

Abstract

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a green technology for biomass pretreatment with the omission of hazardous chemicals. This study reports a novel integration of HTL and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) fixed-bed microbial fuel cell (FBMFC) for continuous electricity generation from cornstalk biomass. Two FBMFCs in parallel achieved similar performance fed with cornstalk hydrolysate at different organic loading rates (OLRs) (0.82-8.16g/L/d). About 80% of Chemical oxygen demand (COD) and Total organic carbon (TOC) was removed from low-Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)/COD (0.16) cornstalk hydrolysate at 8.16g/L/d, whereas a maximum power density (680mW/m(3)) was obtained at 2.41g/L/d, and a smallest internal resistance (Rin) (28Ω) at 3.01g/L/d. Illumina MiSeq sequencing reveals the diverse microbial structure induced by the complex composition of cornstalk hydrolysate. Distinguished from Proteobacteria, which a number of exoelectrogens belong to, the identified dominant genus Rhizobium in FBMFC was closely related to degradation of cellulosic biomass.

Lignocellulosic biomass as sustainable feedstock and materials for power generation and energy storage

“…In recent years, the development of nanomaterials has greatly expanded the selection space of anode materials. Compared with traditional carbon electrodes, nano carbon materials like carbon nanofibers and carbon nanotubes have a larger surface area, higher electrochemical catalytic activity and stronger mechanical properties, which have greater application potential [203]. However, these novel anode materials are too expensive to be of use for large scale application.…”

Hydrothermal Liquefaction: How the Holistic Approach by Nature Will Help Solve the Environmental Conundrum

“…These materials hold great promise for numerous applications, including semiconductors, supercapacitors, and construction materials with outstanding properties. Biochar and hydrochar are also frequently used as catalysts and fertilizers and for the bioremediation of wastewater and contaminated soil [53,89,160,172,173,[186][187][188][189][190][198][199][200][201][202].…”

Recent advances on biomass-fueled microbial fuel cell

“…To date, various biomass including chitin (Li et al 2017a , b ), kitchen waste (Hou et al 2016 ; Moqsud et al 2014 ), orange peels (Miran et al 2016a ), algal biomass (Gajda et al 2015 ; He et al 2014 ), forest detritus in the forested wetland (Dai et al 2015 ), wheat straw hydrolysate (Song et al 2014 ; Thygesen et al 2011 ), rice straw (Hassan et al 2014 ), corn stove (Wang et al 2017 ; Zhang et al 2013 ), solid potato wastes (Du and Li 2017 ; Du et al 2017 ), food waste (ElMekawy et al 2015 ; Li et al 2016 ), corn stalk biomass (Liu et al 2015 ), lemon peel (Miran et al 2016b ), cow dung (Bharadwaj and Kumar 2012 ; Javalkar and Alam 2012 ) has been exploited as fuel sources for bioenergy production in MFCs (Table 1 ). The biomass used can be categorized as lignocellulosic biomass (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, such as wood , sugarcane bagasse , rice husk , rice straw , corn cob, etc . )…”