Abstract
In recent years, the research work focus in energy sector has been shifted towards the renewable energy due to continuous depletion of conventional energy sources. On the other hand, exponentially increasing pollution in water reserves has stimulated phenomenal debates among researchers, pollution control agencies, and stakeholders in search of sustainable solution to remediate it. Sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) is one of the most promising approaches to address these two highly recognized problems together (Sajana et al. 2013b). In addition, SMFCs can offer distinctive opportunity to understand the flow of energy through electrochemically active bacteria, energy collection efficiency from natural systems, and the role of SMFCs for power generation and in situ bioremediation in the natural environment (Sajana et al. 2013a). SMFCs comprise two electrically conductive electrodes as anode and cathode placed 5–10 cm beneath the free surface of sediment and free water surface, respectively (Fig. 17.1a). Chemical energy associated with organic matter present in the sediment and water gets converted to electron and proton during oxidation catalyzed by microorganisms, working as biocatalyst on anode surface. Sediment permits the flow of protons from anode to cathode side serving as proton permeable natural medium. The anode collects extracellular electrons and transfer them to the cathode through an external circuit. On cathode, oxygen or other chemical oxidant (like nitrate) serve as terminal electro acceptor (TEA), which combines with electron and proton and produce water or other reduced product (Rismani-Yazdi et al. 2008). In addition, anions and cations can be used for charge balanced in the SMFCs based on their concentration in the fluid (Kim et al. 2007). Natural phenomenon of redox charge gradient have been used for development of SMFCs. Table 17.1 shows the brief summary of half-cell equations (anodic and cathodic) which can take place on anode and cathode during bioconversion of organic matter to electricity.
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Noori, M.T., Ghangrekar, M.M., Mukherjee, C.K. (2018). Sediment Microbial Fuel Cell and Constructed Wetland Assisted with It: Challenges and Future Prospects. In: Das, D. (eds) Microbial Fuel Cell. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66793-5_17
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