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Commercial materials as cathode for hydrogen production in microbial electrolysis cell

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Abstract

The use of commercial electrodes as cathodes in a single-chamber microbial electrolysis cell has been investigated. The cell was operated in sequencing batch mode and the performance of the electrodes was compared with carbon cloth containing 0.5 mg Pt cm−2. Overall H2 recovery \( ({\text{r}}_{{{\text{H}}_{2} }} ) \) was 66.7 ± 1.4, 58.7 ± 1.1 and 55.5 ± 1.5 % for Pt/CC, Ni and Ti mesh electrodes, respectively. Columbic efficiencies of the three cathodes were in the same range (74.8 ± 1.5, 77.6 ± 1.7 and 75.7 ± 1.2 % for Pt/CC, Ni and Ti mesh electrodes, respectively). A similar performance for the three cathodes under near-neutral pH and ambient temperature was obtained. The commercial electrodes are much cheaper than carbon cloth containing Pt. Low cost and good performance of these electrodes suggest they are suitable cathode materials for large scale application.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Maraghe wastewater treatment plant and Chlorpars Company for providing activated sludge and cathode samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

    Sara Farhangi & Mojtaba Shariati Niasar

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology Research Center, Sahand University of Technology, PO Box 51335-1996, Tabriz, Iran

    Sirous Ebrahimi

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  1. Sara Farhangi
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  2. Sirous Ebrahimi
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  3. Mojtaba Shariati Niasar
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Correspondence to Sirous Ebrahimi.

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Farhangi, S., Ebrahimi, S. & Niasar, M.S. Commercial materials as cathode for hydrogen production in microbial electrolysis cell. Biotechnol Lett 36, 1987–1992 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-014-1565-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-014-1565-7

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