Monday, July 27, 2009
P14

Continuous Electricity Generation from Carbon Monoxide via CO Fermentation and Microbial Fuel Cell

Daehee Kim1, Junyeong An2, and In Seop Chang1. (1) Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, South Korea, (2) Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gwnagju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, South Korea

Herein, our purpose was to verify whether it is able to generate electricity from CO as a major component of synthesis gas (syn-gas) by microbial process. We have constructed the consolidated bioprocess to convert CO to volatile fatty acids (mainly acetate) and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) to electricity. However, it showed low overall conversion yield. This was mainly due to the microbial fuel cell (MFC) part which showed only 5% of coulombic yield. Herein, we attempted to increase coulombic yield by developing MFC part. The acetate concentration at the CO fermenter was 30 mM and it was directly fed to the MFC. Hence, we proposed a novel type of MFC to utilize high concentration of fuels at high efficiency. The novel type of MFC has eighteen membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) in one reactor (anode) to maximize contact area of fuel to the anode electrode. We first enriched the MFC with 5 mM of acetate at the synthetic medium. After it was switched to close, generated current was 10 mA (coulombic yield: 75%). When the acetate concentration was increased up to 30 mM, the MFC showed 20 mA of currenct generation with the coulombic yield of 65%. After then, we replaced the former MFC part in consolidated bioprocess to the novel type. The generated current and coulombic yield were similar to the results at synthetic medium with 30 mM of acetate. However, the fuel (acetate) concentration was not completely oxidized by MFC. The further research to optimize system is now conducted.

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