Journal
BIOELECTROCHEMISTRY
Volume 120, Issue -, Pages 18-26Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA
DOI: 10.1016/j.bioelechem.2017.11.005
Keywords
Electroactive biofilms; Biocathode; Microbial fuel cell; Terracotta; Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequencing
Funding
- Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) (SIR Grant) [RBSI14JKU3]
- Research Fund for the Italian Electrical System
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Recently, terracotta has attracted interest as low-cost and biocompatible material to build separators in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). However, the influence of a non-conductive material like terracotta on electroactive microbiological communities remains substantially unexplored. This study aims at describing the microbial pools developed from two different seed inocula (bovine and swine sewage) in terracotta-based air-breathing MFC. A statistical approach on microbiological data confirmed different community enrichment in the MFCs, depending mainly on the inoculum. Terracotta separators impeded the growth of electroactive communities in contact with cathodes (biocathodes), while a thick biofilm was observed on the surface (anolyte-side) of the terracotta separator. Terracotta-free MFCs, set as control experiments, showed a well-developed biocathode, Biocathode-MFCs resulted in 4 to 6-fold higher power densities. All biofilms were analyzed by high-throughput Illumina sequencing applied to 16S rRNA gene. The results showed more abundant (3- to 5-fold) electroactive genera (mainly Geobacter, Pseudomonas, Desulfuromonas and Clostridia MBA03) in terracotta-free biocathodes. Nevertheless, terracotta separators induced only slight changes in anodic microbial communities. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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