Performance of microbial fuel cell double chamber using mozzarella cheese whey substrate

• Published in: IOP conference series. Earth and environmental science Vol. 131; no. 1; pp. 12047 - 12051
• Main Authors: Darmawan, M D, Hawa, L C, Argo, B D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.03.2018
• Subjects: Alternative energy sources; Bacteria; Biochemical fuel cells; Chambers; Cheese; Dairy products; Electric potential; Fuel cells; Fuel technology; Lactobacilli; Lactobacillus bulgaricus; Membranes; Metabolism; Microorganisms; Nuclear fuels; Potassium; Potassium permanganate; Substrates; Voltage; Whey
• ISSN: 1755-1307; 1755-1315
• DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/131/1/012047

Nowadays the availability of electric energy is decreasing, hence there is a need for innovation of electric energy producer alternative; one of them is microbial fuel cell (MFC). MFC is a bioelectrochemical system generated by bacterial metabolism that utilizes organic substrate. One of the substrates that can be used is whey, a waste generated from cheese production. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the power of potential current and voltage generated from the use of whey cheese as a substrate for bacterial metabolism. In this research, double chamber system was used in microbial fuel cell reactor by using cheese whey as substrate at anode and potassium permanganate as cathode and utilizing membrane nafion 212 as membrane of proton exchange. The variable of experiment was bacteria type. The types of bacteria used in this study were Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophillus and Lactobacillus casei. While the operating time used was 100 hours. The highest current produced was 74.6 μA and the highest voltage was 529.3 mV produced by Lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria. In this study, it was also found that the death phase of the three bacteria was at 70-80 hours.