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Cathode modification to enhance the performance ofin-situfenton oxidation in microbial fuel cells
- Source :
- Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy. 36:382-393
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2016.
-
Abstract
- Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a sustainable and energy efficient technology, which uses graphite as cathode for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production often with simultaneous power production. Nevertheless, slow kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the surface of graphite often results in poor performance of MFC. In an attempt to improve the performance of MFC for in-situ H2O2 production, a treatment of graphite cathode using nitric acid was performed. The treatment was conducted in three steps (i) heat treatment at 450°C for 2 h; (ii) acid treatment with concentrated nitric acid for 5 h; and (iii) drying at 120°C for 2 h. After the treatment, four times increase in surface area of treated cathode (GR-HA) was observed. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis revealed the presence of nitrogen and quinone based functional groups on the surface of GR-HA. Cyclic voltammetric (CV) analysis of GR-HA cathode further confirmed the production of H2O2 at the peak current value of −3.7 mA and on-set potential of −0.1 V. Following CV analysis, H2O2 production experiments were performed in a dual chamber MFC using GR-HA as cathode. Maximum 150 mg/L of H2O2 was produced with simultaneous power production of 36.438 mW/m2. Approximately, 25% increase in both H2O2 and power production was observed in the case of G cathode. Subsequently, Fenton oxidation experiments were performed (with GR-HA and GR-CA cathodes) to determine the efficacy of in-situ produced H2O2. This resulted in an increase of 8.28%, 11.04%, and 31.32% in decolorization, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and Total Organic Carbon (TOC) removal efficiency, respectively. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 382–393, 2017
- Subjects :
- Environmental Engineering
Microbial fuel cell
General Chemical Engineering
Inorganic chemistry
chemistry.chemical_element
02 engineering and technology
010501 environmental sciences
01 natural sciences
law.invention
chemistry.chemical_compound
law
Nitric acid
Environmental Chemistry
Graphite
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
Hydrogen peroxide
Waste Management and Disposal
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
General Environmental Science
Water Science and Technology
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Chemical oxygen demand
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
Nitrogen
Cathode
chemistry
0210 nano-technology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19447442
- Volume :
- 36
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........ec4c043fb22fc939a1c9a3b94adf665f