Sulfonated Polyethersulfone/Torlon Blend Membrane Incorporated with Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Energy Production f
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is extensively considered as the most efficient alternative energy source which uses organic wastes to generate both electricity and clean water. In this study, an indigenously synthesized sulfonated polyethersulfone/Torlon blend
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Abstract Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is extensively considered as the most efficient alternative energy source which uses organic wastes to generate both electricity and clean water. In this study, an indigenously synthesized sulfonated polyethersulfone/Torlon blend membrane incorporated with multiwalled carbon nanotubes was characterized for ion exchange capacity (IEC 1.45 meq/g) and proton conductivity (0.86 Scm−1) at 30 ± 5 °C. A high power density of 190.73 mW m−2 was achieved at a corresponding current density of 260.20 mA m−2 along with significant COD removal efficiency of 87.5 % from kitchen wastewater.
Keywords Microbial fuel cell Kitchen wastewater conducting membrane, Power density
Mixed culture Proton
1 Introduction Effluent treatment for water reclamation could be economical and attractive if power could be simultaneously generated from the waste stream. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) are clean energy devices which exploit the metabolism of a microorganism to generate bio-energy by catalyzing the oxidation of fuels along with treatment of the wastewater [1]. In this study, MFC was operated with equal volumes of 0.6 L in both anode and cathode compartments that were separated by a selectively permeable novel proton exchange membrane (PEM). This indigenous proton conducting blend membrane was employed for treatment of kitchen effluent as shown in Fig. 1. In the anodic compartment, a sludge of kitchen wastewater was pretreated in anaerobic mode wherein mixed bacterial culture (cow dung) was added. The presence of bacteria as biocatalyst in the anodic cell oxidized the H. Nagar G. Anusha S. Sridhar (&) Membrane Separations Group, Chemical Engineering Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500007, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 K.V. Raghavan and P. Ghosh (eds.), Energy Engineering, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3102-1_18
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Fig. 1 MFC experimental setup
substrates to generate electrons and protons. These electrons get transported through an external circuit from the anode side to the cathode side. Protons pass through the membrane and enter the aerated cathode cell to combine with oxygen and produce clean water as byproduct. PEMs are one of the important factors that influence the performance of MFCs due to their role in transportation of proton across the electrodes. The membrane also reduces the diffusivity of oxygen and transportation of other substrates that affect the MFC performance. Oxygen crossover into the anode chamber causes an aerobic condition resulting in a decline in power density and effluent treatment efficiency, along with diffusion of media to the cathode side [2]. In this study, a dense sulfonated polyethersulfone/Torlon blend membrane incorporated with multiwalled carbon nanotubes was synthesized using solution casting and total solvent evaporation technique. The performance of the blend membrane containing inorganic filler was evaluated in terms of efficiency of wastewater treatment and powe
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