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Conversion of waste to electricity in a microbial fuel cell using newly identified bacteria: Pseudomonas fluorescens

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Abstract

The present study deals with the capability of pulp industry wastewater to produce bioelectricity with isolation and screening of native electrogenic bacteria from wastewater. In the screening process, three bacterial isolates were obtained; they were studied on the basis of morphology and biochemical characteristics. The maximum bioelectricity producing bacteria was identified by sequencing method and was identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens, and it is a novel bacteria reported in bioelectricity production from pulp industry wastewater. Further, the work focuses on optimization of various parameters, i.e., inoculum size, pH, temperature, mediators and its concentration. It was observed that with pulp industry wastewater, inoculum size of 1.5% gave the maximum voltage and current of 1.244 ± 0.003d V and 5.946 ± 0.005d mA, respectively. A pH of 7.0 gave maximum voltage and current of 0.956 ± 0.009e V and 2.692 ± 0.016e mA. At 35 °C temperature, maximum production of voltage and current of 1.045 ± 0.003d V and 2.167 ± 0.037d mA were recorded. Among the various mediators, humic acid was found to be most effective as it produced a voltage of 1.054 ± 0.004f V and current of 1.070 ± 0.004d mA. Maximum voltage of 1.291 ± 0.021f V and current of 1.896 ± 0.006f mA were recorded with 200 μM of humic acid. Physicochemical analysis of the effluent was conducted before and after experimental run, and the values suggested that the microbial fuel cell technology is an efficient method for biological treatment of wastewater.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, New Delhi for providing fellowship for this research work and also thankful to the DST-FIST. This work was supported under Grant No. DBT-JRF/2012-13/90.

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  1. School of Studies in Biotechnology, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, 492 010, India

    A. Kaushik & S. K. Jadhav

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  1. A. Kaushik
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  2. S. K. Jadhav
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Correspondence to S. K. Jadhav.

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Kaushik, A., Jadhav, S.K. Conversion of waste to electricity in a microbial fuel cell using newly identified bacteria: Pseudomonas fluorescens . Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 14, 1771–1780 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1260-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1260-z

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