Environmental Science and Pollution Research

, Volume 21, Issue 3, pp 2230–2239 | Cite as

Tracking the spectroscopic and chromatographic changes of algal derived organic matter in a microbial fuel cell

Research Article
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Abstract

Changes in the characteristics of algae-derived organic matter (AOM) were examined upon the operation of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) using multiple analytical methods. Temporal variations in the UV absorption and fluorescence excitation–emission matrix of the AOM revealed that less condensed humic-like components and large-sized protein-like fluorescent compounds were preferentially decomposed over the period of electricity generation. They also showed that low UV-absorbing extracellular organic matters (EOM) were produced at the end of the operation. SEC chromatograms demonstrated that smaller-sized UV-absorbing components were initially decomposed, followed by the net production of EOM with an intermediate molecular weight. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra showed that proteins and polysaccharides were the two most dominant structures of the AOM in the MFC. Two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy combined with FT-IR provided additional valuable information on the sequential changes of the AOM, which occurred in the order of proteins → acidic functional groups → polysaccharides → amino acids/proteins.

Keywords

Algal organic matter Microbial fuel cell Fluorescence Size exclusion chromatography FT-IR 2D-COS 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was primarily supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (NRF-2011-0029028) to J. Hur. Additional fund was provided by National Research Foundation of Korea grants (no. 2010-0003940 and no. 2012R1A1A2042031) and Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity (KOFAC—undergraduate program) to B. Min.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Environment and EnergySejong UniversitySeoulSouth Korea
  2. 2.Department of Environmental Science and EngineeringKyung Hee UniversityYounginSouth Korea

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