Abstract—The study combined anaerobic composting of untreated rice straw with V-shaped microbial fuel cell (V-MFC) to investigate the hydrolysis of lignocellulose and electricity generation of V-MFC. Due to the configuration for V-MFC, protons that be generated by the process of lignocellulose degradation could be accumulated with composting liquid at the bottom of V-MFC, and increased the contact area between polyvinyl alcohol-membrane electrode assembly (PVA-MEA) and rice straw compost. Therefore, V-MFC can buffer the variation of proton concentration in anode chamber and also improve the problem of unstable voltage output caused by environmental temperature. Experimental results show that lignocellulose material used in fed-batch MFC can operate up to 120 days until the liquid in system was consumed. V-MFC can consistently generate stable voltage of 277±10 mV for 75 days, the maximum voltage output of 307 mV, the maximum power density of 112mW/m3 with the internal resistance of 607 Ω. The experiments demonstrate that the process lignocellulose decomposing bacteria (LDB) degraded lignocellulose can generate power. Thus, this method provides a promising way to utilize compositing of rice straw for bioenergy production.

Index Terms—V-shaped microbial fuel cell (V-MFC), lignocellulose, rice straw, proton, polyvinyl alcohol-membrane electrode assembly (PVA-MEA), bioelectricity generation

Cite: Chih-Yu Ma, Chih-Hung Wu, and Chi-Wen Lin, "A Novel V-Shaped Microbial Fuel Cell for Electricity Generation in Biodegrading Rice Straw Compost," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 57-62, June 2015. Doi: 10.12720/joaat.2.1.57-62