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Electricity Production and Characterization of High-Strength Industrial Wastewaters in Microbial Fuel Cell

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Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) convert electrochemical energy into electrical energy immediately and have a big potential usage for the same time wastewater treatment and energy recovery via electro-active microorganisms. However, MFCs must be efficiently optimized due to its limitations such as high cost and low power production. Finding new materials to increase the cell performance and reduce cost for MFC anodes is mandatory. In the first step of this study, different inoculation sludges such as anaerobic gum industry wastewater, anaerobic brewery wastewater and anaerobic phosphate were tested, and MFC that was set up with anaerobic gum industry wastewater inoculation sludge exhibited the highest performance. In the second step of this study, various wastewaters such as chocolate industry, gum industry and slaughterhouse industry were investigated for anode bacteria sources. Several electrochemical techniques have been employed to elucidate how wastewaters affect the MFCs’ performance. Among all the mentioned wastewaters, the best performance was achieved by the MFCs fed with slaughterhouse wastewater; this device produced a maximum power density of 267 mW·m−2.

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Acknowledgements

This paper includes Ph.D thesis data of Afşın Yusuf Çetinkaya. Authors gratefully acknowledge the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) with the project number 114M119 for the financial support in the framework of New INDIGO (New Energy Materials and Smart Grids; No.DST/IMRCD/New Indigo/Bio-e-MAT/2014/(G)/(ii)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Davutpasa Campus, 34220, Istanbul, Esenler, Turkey

    Afsin Y. Cetinkaya, Ahmet Demir & Bestami Ozkaya

  2. Department of Metallurgical and Material Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Oguz Kaan Ozdemir

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  1. Afsin Y. Cetinkaya
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  2. Oguz Kaan Ozdemir
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  3. Ahmet Demir
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  4. Bestami Ozkaya
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Correspondence to Afsin Y. Cetinkaya.

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Cetinkaya, A.Y., Ozdemir, O.K., Demir, A. et al. Electricity Production and Characterization of High-Strength Industrial Wastewaters in Microbial Fuel Cell. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 182, 468–481 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-016-2338-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-016-2338-7

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