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A comparative study of graphene-coated stainless steel fiber felt and carbon cloth as anodes in MFCs

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Abstract

This study investigated the stainless steel-based materials and their potential in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) anode application. Herein, AISI 316L stainless steel fiber felts (SSFFs) were used as anodes in MFCs and their performance was compared with the carbon cloth anode MFCs. The experimental results showed that the unmodified carbon cloth (CC) anode had a better performance than the unmodified SSFF anode. However, after coating a thin layer of graphene (GN) on SSFF and CC, the power density of the MFC equipped with the modified SSFF was 2,143 mW m−2, much higher than that of the graphene-modified CC-MFC which was only 1,018 mW m−2. The experimental results proved that the use of durable metallic backbones combined with a thin layer of carbon nanoparticles offers exciting opportunities in the advancement of MFC anode design.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation Project (No. 51076004) and the 12th Science and Technology Fund of Beijing University of Technology (No.ykj-2013-9407).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Enhanced Heat Transfer and Energy Conservation, Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion, Beijing Education Commission, College of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, People’s Republic of China

    Junxian Hou, Zhongliang Liu, Yanxia Li, Siqi Yang & Yu Zhou

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  1. Junxian Hou
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  2. Zhongliang Liu
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  3. Yanxia Li
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  4. Siqi Yang
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  5. Yu Zhou
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Correspondence to Zhongliang Liu.

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Hou, J., Liu, Z., Li, Y. et al. A comparative study of graphene-coated stainless steel fiber felt and carbon cloth as anodes in MFCs. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 38, 881–888 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1332-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1332-0

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