Bioaugmentation for electricity generation from corn stover biomass using microbial fuel cells.
Corn stover is usually treated by an energy-intensive or expensive process to extract sugars for bioenergy production. However, it is possible to directly generate electricity from corn stover in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) through the addition of microbial consortia specifically acclimated for biomass breakdown. A mixed culture that was developed to have a high saccharification rate with corn stover was added to single-chamber, air-cathode MFCs acclimated for power production using glucose. The MFC produced a maximum power of 331 mW/m2 with the bioaugmented mixed culture and corn stover, compared to 510 mW/m2 using glucose. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) showed the communities continued to evolve on both the anode and corn stover biomass over 60 days, with several bacteria identified including Rhodopseudomonas palustris. The use of residual solids from the steam exploded corn stover produced 8% more power (406 mW/m2) than the raw corn stover. These results show that it is possible to directly generate electricity from waste corn stover in MFCs through bioaugmentation using naturally occurring bacteria.
Wang
Xin
X
State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, No. 73 Huanghe Road, Nangang District, Harbin 150090, China.
Feng
Yujie
Y
Wang
Heming
H
Qu
Youpeng
Y
Yu
Yanling
Y
Ren
Nanqi
N
Li
Nan
N
Wang
Elle
E
Lee
He
H
Logan
Bruce E
BE
D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources / Q000382:microbiology*; D018533:Biomass; D019149:Bioreactors; D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry; D003246:Conservation of Energy Resources; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004560:Electricity; D004566:Electrodes; D005285:Fermentation; D005947:Glucose / Q000737:chemistry; D008031:Lignin / Q000737:chemistry; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000737:chemistry; D012241:Rhodopseudomonas / Q000378:metabolism; D003313:Zea mays
D011134:Polysaccharides; C007916:hemicellulose; D002482:Cellulose; D008031:Lignin; D005947:Glucose