PP-BI5

Bioelectricity Production through Microbial Fuel Cells Using Indigenous Microbes

Alka Kaushik and SK Jadhav 

School of Studies in Biotechnology, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur 492 010, India

Corresponding author email: jadhav9862@ gmail.com

[Received 12 January 2016; accepted 29 January 2016]

Abstract: Due to worldwide population growth and modernization, people are facing energy crisis leading to ever increasing energy demand. Energy is the lifeline of economic, social and industrial sectors. To fulfill this energy demand fossil fuels are consumed, leading to their depletion, pollution, and climate change. To overcome this global problem, there is a nced for such type of energy sources that hold great potential to meet energy needs and are also renewable, cheaper, eco-friendly and sustainable. In this direction, bioelectricity production through microbial fuel cell (MFC) was studied quite extensively. This is a new technique to generate electricity by converting chemical energy into electrical energy from renewable and biodegradable biomass by use of microorganisms as biocatalysts without evolution of harmful gases such as carbon dioxide etc. In this context, bioelectricity generation through MFC using Gudiyari nala wastewater was investigated. In this study. bacterial strains were isolated and screened for production of bioelectricity. A total of three bacterial strains were found to be electrogenic and produced a maximum voltage of 0.73:0.049 V and current of 0.9320.160 mA with zinc-carbon electrode combination. The data were recorded using a digital multimeter. The results revealed that Gudiyari nala wastewater along with its native bacterial strains may serve as a potential renewable resource for bioelectricity production and may reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

Keywords: Bioelectricity, Microbial fuel cell, Wastewater, Electrogenic Bacteria