Polyaniline composite TiO2 nanosheets modified carbon paper electrode as a high performance bioanode for microbial fuel cells

Composite materials can achieve synergistic effect through complementarity components, which are important for improving electrode performance. The co-modification of vertically oriented TiO2 nanosheets (TiO2-NSs) and conductive polyaniline (PANI) are studied. PANI with different content is deposited onto TiO2-NSs/CP during electrochemical cyclic voltammetry (CV) with 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 cycles. Bio-electrochemical experiments indicate that TiO2-20PANI/CP electrode with deposited PANI via 20 cycles of CV had the lowest charge transfer resistance (R-ct) and the largest transient charge storage capacity (TCSC), which exhibit the best performance. The maximum output power density of PV-4 at TiO2-20PANI/CP anode (813 mW.m(-2)) is increased 63.6% more than that at TiO2-NSs/CP anode. The results give a guideline for designing high performance bio-electrode. Moreover, the method is simply and efficient, and could be extended to other nano-semiconductor modified electrodes for superior MFC anodes.