Abstract
This chapter aims to discuss the current and potential applications of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), a suitable technique for energy harvesting. In the last few years, MFC technology has been extensively investigated due to its capacity for wastewater treatment with simultaneous generation of bioelectricity, with many efforts devoted to increasing the efficiency of these devices. Although their practical implementation remains a challenge, the scope of application has been expanded to several fields in which they have achieved encouraging results. Among the drawbacks, the scaling-up of MFC systems poses issues for large installations. The strengths and limitations of these bioelectrochemical devices are analyzed for their potential application in terms of electricity generation at large scale and power supply to small electronic devices, municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, metal removal, water decolorization, added-value chemical production, and biosensing. Several strategies proposed in the literature for the scaling-up of the technology are also analyzed.
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Ortiz-Martínez, V.M., Gómez-Coma, L., Pérez, G., Ortiz, A., Ortiz, I. (2020). Current Applications and Future Perspectives of Microbial Fuel Cell Technology. In: Kumar, P., Kuppam, C. (eds) Bioelectrochemical Systems. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6868-8_14
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