Analysis of Electricity Generation Using Rod based Microbial Reactor

Abstract

Due to increasing population every year, there is an increase in the global energy demand and over-consumption of non-renewable sources of energy to meet the never-ending demands. It has become important to identify and use renewable yet cost-effective sources of energy. With respect to the above context, wastewater containing high levels of degradable organic material can be used as a source for generating electricity through a microbial reactor. This produces electricity by anaerobic fermentation of organic/inorganic matter by converting metabolised biomass to complex wastewater using microbes as catalysts.

This project work deals with the operation of reactor using STP wastewater, graphite and carbon rod electrodes under varying conditions of aeration and biofilm. The electricity generation potential of the electrode was tested for different conditions and a maximum of 0.33 V was generated. The maximum Biological Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand removal efficiency of 80% and 70.5% were achieved, respectively.