Microbial electrolysis cell modelling and simulation using MATLAB

Hydrogen is considered as an attractive energy source in the 21
^st
century and as a fuel to replace conventional fossil fuels. Apart from being a potential source of unlimited clean power, it is also widely used in the chemical process industries and is likely to become a dominant fuel in the transportation sector. Microbial conversion of biomass is a newly developed and unique process, which involves the fermentation of organic substrates such as carbohydrates present in organic wastewater by a consortium of bacteria to produce hydrogen. The study outlined in this paper provides a review of the microbial conversion process and describes the mathematical modelling of the microbial electrolysis cell behaviour in MATLAB.