Evaluation of tomato waste feedstocks for microbial fuel cells

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an emerging biotechnology that directly convert organic wastes into electricity through the use of electron-producing bacteria. Tomato waste streams are a novel negative-value feedstock that can be used as fuel for MFCs in industrial applications. This experiment evaluated four different tomato waste streams for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), then calculated the resulting power density and coulombic efficiency produced by the MFC. Results indicate that initial BOD correlates with power density, and that higher BOD to COD ratios correlate with increased coulombic efficiency. These findings suggest that tomato processing waste streams constitute a new energy source for MFCs and enable the future identification of industrial food waste streams relevant to bioenergy production.