Single medium microbial fuel cell: Stainless steel and graphite electrode materials select bacterial communities resulting in opposite electrocatalytic activities

Benjamin Erable (1) , N. Byrne (2, 3) , Luc Etcheverry (1) , Wafa Achouak (2, 3) , Alain Bergel (1)

1 LGC - Laboratoire de Génie Chimique
2 LEMIRE - Laboratoire d'Ecologie Microbienne de la Rhizosphère et d'Environnements Extrêmes
3 BIAM - Institut de Biosciences et Biotechnologies d'Aix-Marseille (ex-IBEB)

A graphite electrode and a stainless steel electrode immersed in exactly the same medium and polarised at the same potential were colonised by different microbial biofilms. This difference in electroactive microbial population leads stainless steel and graphite to become a microbial cathode and a microbial anode respectively. The results demonstrated that the electrode material can drive the electrocatalytic property of the biofilm opening perspectives for designing single medium MFC. This new discovery led to of the first demonstration of a “single medium MFC.” Such a single medium MFC designed with a graphite anode connected to a stainless steel cathode, both buried in marine sediments, produced 280 mA m−2 at a voltage of 0.3 V for more than 2 weeks.

Mots clés: Stainless steel; Graphite; Microbial fuel cell; Single medium; Microbial population analysis; DGGE

Domaines: Génie chimique; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Benjamin Erable, N. Byrne, Luc Etcheverry, Wafa Achouak, Alain Bergel. Single medium microbial fuel cell: Stainless steel and graphite electrode materials select bacterial communities resulting in opposite electrocatalytic activities. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2017, 42 (41), pp.26059-26067. ⟨10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.08.178⟩. ⟨hal-01844497⟩