Electricity generation from food and animal wastewaters using microbial fuel cells

A new technology of using a microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been developed to generate electricity directly from marine sediments, anaerobically digested sludge, and domestic wastewater. The potential of producing electricity from food processing and animal wastewaters was studied using a MFC. A wastewater sample was taken from a cereal processing unit at a food processing plant that is known to be high in COD. The animal wastewater was collected from the Pennsylvania State University Swine Farm. An analysis of the reactor contents during electricity generation indicated that sugars were rapidly reduced, resulting in the formation and release into solution of many volatile acids and alcohols typical of fermentation processes. Hydrogen generation could be successfully linked with electricity generation in a MFC. Voltage was slowly developed over 2 wk after the MFC was loaded with the raw animal wastewater. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the ACS Fuel Chemistry Meeting (Washington, DC Fall 2005).