Electricity Generation in Microbial Fuel Cells from Waste Glycerol and Tanner Wastewater
Nipon Pisutpaisal * Vanatpornratt Sawasdee and
Department of Agro-Industrial, Food and Environmental Technology, Faculty of Applied Science, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok

Abstract

The aims of this research were compared the electricity generation and COD removal between waste glycerol and tannery wastewater with microbial fuel cell technology. The results showed power generation from waste glycerol and tannery waste water were obtained 0.0018 mW m-2 and 6.2 mW m-2, respectively. The COD removal efficiency can be obtained from waste glycerol and tannery wastewater 80 and 90%, respectively. The nitrogen removal efficiency from tannery wastewater in form of TKN (Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen) can be obtained 50%. Moreover, there are 2 parameters that indicated to oxidation-reduction reaction, which important reaction for microbial fuel cell are cyclic voltammetry (CV) and coulombic efficiency (CE). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) was showed the oxidation-reduction on electrode. Coulombic efficiency (CE) from waste glycerol and tannery wastewater were 7.62 and 15.6 %, respectively. There are parameters that showed the efficiency of electricity generation with 2 of substrates from microbial fuel cells. Therefore, microbial fuel cell technology that can be electricity generation from tannery wastewater better than waste glycerol.

Keywords : Waste glycerol, Tannery wastewater, Microbial fuel cell technology, Electricity generation