Microbial fuel cell is a system that directly generates electricity by converting chemical energy contained in organic substances with aid by microorganism. Application of microbial fuel cell (MFC) could be a solution for producing sustainable clean energy and treating wastewater simultaneously. In Indonesia, tofu wastewater and POME have been produced in a large amount and not been studied further for MFC application yet. Tofu wastewater and POME have high organic contents readily used by microorganism to be converted into electricity, therefore this study aims to investigate MFC performance using tofu wastewater and POME as the substrate. MFC performance is evaluated based on fuel cell output and COD removal.
Double-chamber MFC was used in this study. The MFC is made from plexiglass. Graphite sheet as the electrode was previously activated by sonication in nitric acid and sulphuric acid solution. Nafion 212 was used as proton exchange membrane (PEM) to separate anode and cathode chambers which had also been previously activated. Tofu wastewater and POME from local district were used as the feed wastewater. The inoculum used in this research was mixed culture originating from cow manure.
Contact Person:
Ardiyan Harimawan, Ph.D. (ardiyan@che.itb.ac.id)
