Enhancement of renewable electrical energy recovery from palm oil mill effluent by microbial fuel cell with activated carbon

Abstract

This study designed to enhance the energy recovery by the microbial fuel cell (MFC) fed with palm oil mill effluent. The maximum voltage output of 267.1 ± 5.5 mV and power density of 344.3 ± 8.6 mW/m2 were obtained with MFC operated at sludge retention times of 70 days, 1.25 gCOD/L/day organic loading rate, 7 g/L of activated carbon with an average particle size of 60.232 µm. It also had the relatively lower internal resistance and biogas yield at 156 Ω and 111.5 ± 11.4 mL/gCOD, respectively. It also had the highest coulombic efficiency (CE) at 3.06 ± 0.61% and the COD removal efficiency amounted to 91.90 ± 0.44%.