Development of a procedure to rapidly acclimate a microbial fuel cell (MFC) for electricity production

Various techniques to enrich electrochemically active bacteria on an electrode using acetate as a substrate were studied using anaerobic sludge and a two-chamber fuel cell. The inoculum was enriched with iron reducing bacteria, but power densities were low without L-cysteine. With an iron oxide-coated electrode, the maximum power density was three times higher than that of carbon electrode and the coulombic efficiency was increased from 40 to over 80% with a methanogen inhibitor, 2-bromoethanesulfonate. These active enrichment techniques could sometimes reduce acclimations and increase the power density and efficiency of a MFC. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 228th ACS National Meeting (Philadelphia, PA 8/22-26/2004).