A novel microbial fuel cell incorporated with polyvinylchloride/4A zeolite composite membrane for kitchen wastewater reclamation and power generation

The present work focuses on the synthesis of novel membrane based on hydrophilic zeolite 4A incorporated in hydrophobic polyvinylchloride (PVC) matrix for the treatment of kitchen wastewater by the microbial fuel cell (MFC). The indigenous membrane was prepared by solution casting-solvent evaporation technique and characterized by FTIR, XRD, TGA and SEM analysis. Sorption behavior, proton conductivity, ion exchange capacity (IEC) and MFC performance were thoroughly investigated. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was performed to determine oxygen diffusion coefficient through the membrane, which was found to be desirably low. Higher proton conductivity values were observed at increasing zeolite concentrations in PVC membrane until an optimum power density of 250 +/- 5 mWM(-2) could be achieved at 15% loading. Corresponding performances of plain PVC and Nafion 117 membranes were observed to be only 92 +/- 5 mW m(-2) and 125 +/- 5 mW m(-2), respectively. Furthermore, the PVC/4A membrane exhibited substantial removal of chemical oxygen demand up to an extent 89%. The mixed matrix membrane exhibits vast potential for MFC application as demonstrated by its performance comparison with state-of-the-art Nafion 117 membrane.