Abstract
► Synthesizing carbon nanotube/platinum (CNT/Pt) electrode. ► Comparison of CNT/Pt electrode efficiency with other electrodes. ► Testing the microbial fuel cell (MFC) performance by different substrate COD. ► Optimizing the performance of MFC by different electrode and substrate.
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) hold great promise as an alternative for direct biochemical energy extraction from both biomass and wastewater. However, the commercialization and scaling-up of MFCs is not completely feasible, due to the high price of platinum (Pt) as a cathode catalyst. In this paper, we studied the use of a carbon nanotube (CNT) composite catalyst, to reduce the amount of Pt (without decline of efficiency) for moving towards the commercialization of MFCs. CNT/Pt composite electrodes would increase MFC power output by 8.7–32.2%; with respect to the pristine Pt as a catalyst for the cathode at a chemical oxygen demand (COD) substrate of 100mg/l and 2000mg/l, respectively. Moreover, the amount of Pt in the CNT/Pt electrode could be reduced by up to 25% of the amount necessary for a conventional Pt/carbon electrode.