Enhancing performance of microbial fuel cell treating distillery wastewater using carbon supported Nickel-phthalocyanine/MnOx as novel cathode catalyst

Three MFCs with different catalyst incorporated on carbon felt cathode, viz. nickel phthalocyanine-MnOx (NiPc-MnOx) composite (MFC-1), platinum (MFC-2), control MFC with bare carbon felt (MFC-3) were used for treating distillery wastewater. The linear sweep voltammetry studies revealed that a maximum current density of 3.7 Am-2 was achieved for NiPc-MnOx/C catalysed cathode, which is 13-folds higher than that for control cathode (0.27 Am-2). Consequently, MFC-1 demonstrated a power density of 48.8 mWm(-2), which was around 3.3-folds higher than the control MFC (14.9 mWm(-2)) owing to the improved oxidation reduction kinetics in case of NiPc-MnOx/C catalysed cathode. Coulombic efficiency (CE) was enhanced by a margin of about 11 % for MFC-1 (24.8 %) in comparison to MFC-3 (13.4 %). MFC-2 having platinum cathode catalyst exhibited a power density of 61.3 mWm(-2), which was slightly higher than that achieved by MFC-2. However, NiPc-MnOx was prepared at 3-fold less cost as compared to platinum. Hence, NiPc-MnOx/C can be used as an alternative to platinum as cathode catalyst in MFC treating distillery wastewater.