Analysis of polarization methods for elimination of power overshoot in microbial fuel cells
Type
ArticleKAUST Grant Number
KUS-I1-003-13Date
2011-01Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/597562
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Polarization curves from microbial fuel cells (MFCs) often show an unexpectedly large drop in voltage with increased current densities, leading to a phenomenon in the power density curve referred to as "power overshoot". Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV, 1 mV s- 1) and variable external resistances (at fixed intervals of 20 min) over a single fed-batch cycle in an MFC both resulted in power overshoot in power density curves due to anode potentials. Increasing the anode enrichment time from 30 days to 100 days did not eliminate overshoot, suggesting that insufficient enrichment of the anode biofilm was not the primary cause. Running the reactor at a fixed resistance for a full fed-batch cycle (~ 1 to 2 days), however, completely eliminated the overshoot in the power density curve. These results show that long times at a fixed resistance are needed to stabilize current generation by bacteria in MFCs, and that even relatively slow LSV scan rates and long times between switching circuit loads during a fed-batch cycle may produce inaccurate polarization and power density results for these biological systems. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Citation
Watson VJ, Logan BE (2011) Analysis of polarization methods for elimination of power overshoot in microbial fuel cells. Electrochemistry Communications 13: 54–56. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elecom.2010.11.011.Sponsors
This research was supported under a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, NSF grant CBET-0730359, and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) (Award KUS-I1-003-13).Publisher
Elsevier BVJournal
Electrochemistry Communicationsae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.elecom.2010.11.011