BIOELECTRICITY GENERATION BY TWO-CHAMBERED MICROBIAL FUEL CELL USING DOMESTIC SLUDGE AND FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WASTES

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is one of the promising fuel cell technologies that utilize the biochemical activity of microorganisms to convert the substrate to produce electricity through metabolism processes. Although the generation of electricity is still on mW scale, MFCs have great potential for future application. The general objective of the study is to develop a two-chambered microbial fuel cell using domestic sludge and fruit and vegetable wastes as substrates. It aims to determine the amount of voltage, current, and power generated by the microbial fuel cell (MFC) while observing other parameters such as temperature, pH level, and colony-forming unit count. Three treatments namely: Treatment 1(100% sludge), Treatment 2(75% sludge +25% FAV), and Treatment 3 (50% sludge +50% FAV) were observed for a duration of 5 days. Results show that MFC with 100% sludge generated 741.56 mV of voltage, 1.251 mA of current, and 827.86 mW of power. MFC with 75% sludge +25% FAV generated 631.89 mV of voltage,1.251 mA of current, and 775.70 mW of power. MFC with 50% sludge +50% FAV generated 485.39 mV of voltage,0.651 mA of current, and 314.96 mW of power. Analysis of variance also revealed a significant difference among the treatments and it can be concluded that MFC with 100% sludge showed the best performance. Furthermore, slight correlations were observed between the generated power and coliform forming unit of the different treatments indicating that coliform forming unit count does not guarantee a good MFC performance. Also, a positive correlation was observed between pH level and generated power which signifies that pH level can affect the performance of MFC, in this study pH level ranges from 4.86 to 6.81. Lastly, a slight correlation were found between temperature and power generated during the observation.