Capacitance-enhanced 3D graphene anode for microbial fuel cell with long-time electricity generation stability

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been constructed using a hydrothermal reduction method with graphene aerogel (GA) as the bioanode and plain carbon paper (CP) as the cathode. In this work, the capacitance-enhanced 3D GA was prepared by the ascorbic acid (VC) reduced. The specific surface area of the 3D GA was 307.55 m(2) g(-1), which was much higher than that of CP (13.89 m(2) g(-1)). The high specific capacitance (3670 F m(-2)) of GA anode was approximately 36 times higher than that of CP anode materials (10 F m(-2)). The maximum output voltage and the maximum power density of the capacitance-enhanced 3D GA anode were 488 mV and 5 mW/m(3), which were much higher than that of the CP anode at 157 mV and 708.89 mW/m(3). Furthermore, the long-time electricity generation stability (LEGS) of the capacitance-enhanced GA anode reached approximately 100 h, which was 36 times higher than that of CP anode. Hence, the capacitance-enhanced 3D GA anode can increase the output voltage and strengthen the LEGS. (c) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.