Microbial fuel cells in waste water treatment in building as potential solution to supply low power applications

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) have been receiving increased interest in the last three decades. MFC can produce electrical energy from a wide variety of organic wastes in wastewater treatment plant concurrently with the treatment process. MFCs are considered as low power, low voltage generator. Scaled-up systems are needed to allow for efficient treatment of large volume of wastewater, but also to be able to produce sufficient electricity. Non-uniformities and hydraulic couplings between stacked MFCs are two problems that can negatively affect the performances. A power management unit is required to step-up the output voltage of the association of few MFCs for suitable supply of low power applications. In this paper, the operation of a serial stack, hydraulically coupled, non-uniform MFCs is studied and optimized to supply low power applications in a wastewater treatment scheme.