B 12/CNT anodic nano catalysis applied on polishing the performance of microbial fuel cells

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a newly emerging technology in bioenergy processing. This research is to replace the use of platinum catalysts. Three types of oxygen reduction catalysts (B12/XC-72, B12/CNT and B12/AC) are analyzed and compared with the other two activated sludge and no catalyst where the performance of activated carbon in MFCs are evaluated. The results show that the catalyst with B12 vitamin as the main body has a higher open-circuit voltage. Among them, the open-circuit voltage of B12/CNT is the highest with 0.667 V, which is about 2 times that of MFCs without catalyst. The highest electrical performance with 0.54 W m(-2) is 3.17 times that of catalyst-free MFCs, which shows that the self-made B12/CNT catalyst MFCs have the best performance in this study. The related research will be helpful for the application of wastewater to energy. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study evaluates the performance of three oxygen reduction catalysts in microbial fuel cells, with results showing that the B12/CNT catalyst exhibits the highest performance. This research could facilitate the application of wastewater for energy conversion.