1. Electricity generation using white and red wine lees in air cathode microbial fuel cells
- Author
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Sara Borin, Alessandra D'Epifanio, Silvia Licoccia, Giuseppe Merlino, Tommy Pepè Sciarria, Fabrizio Adani, Barbara Scaglia, and Barbara Mecheri
- Subjects
Biochemical oxygen demand ,Wine ,Microbial fuel cell ,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment ,Settore CHIM/07 - Fondamenti Chimici delle Tecnologie ,Environmental engineering ,Energy Engineering and Power Technology ,chemistry.chemical_element ,Pulp and paper industry ,Lees ,Oxygen ,Anode ,chemistry ,White Wine ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,Faraday efficiency - Abstract
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a useful biotechnology to produce electrical energy from different organic substrates. This work reports for the first time results of the application of single chamber MFCs to generate electrical energy from diluted white wine (WWL) and red wine (RWL) lees. Power obtained was of 8.2 W m −3 (262 mW m −2 ; 500 Ω) and of 3.1 W m −3 (111 mW m −2 ; 500Ω) using white and red wine lees, respectively. Biological processes lead to a reduction of chemical oxygen (TCOD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD 5 ) of 27% and 83% for RWL and of 90% and 95% for WWL, respectively. These results depended on the degradability of organic compounds contained, as suggest by BOD 5 /TCOD of WWL (0.93) vs BOD 5 /TCOD of RWL (0.33), and to the high presence of polyphenols in RWL that inhibited the process. Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 15 ± 0%, for WWL, was in line with those reported in the literature for other substrates, i.e. CE of 14.9 ± 11.3%. Different substrates led to different microbial consortia, particularly at the anode. Bacterial species responsible for the generation of electricity, were physically connected to the electrode, where the direct electron transfer took place.
- Published
- 2015