An Experiment On The Effect Of Ammonia Migration To The Electricity Generation Performance And Denitrification Efficiency Of Cathode Denitrification Dual-chamber Microbial Fuel Cell

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a device which converts the chemical energy stored in thefuel into electricity using microbe as its catalyst. MFC generates electricity during the processof sewage disposal; therefore, it is a clean renewable energy technology. Besides, due to thevariety sources of fuel, its mild reaction condition and no combustion process will be causedwithin the procedure of proposal, it has a comparatively high converting efficiency, making itto be a new green technology of sewage proposal.MFC can be divided into single-and double-chamber MFCs according to whether theanode and cathode is separated or not. It is called cathode denitrification double-chamberMFC if the denitrification reaction occurs in the double-chamber MFC’s cathode. There areseveral drawbacks, such as too long starting time, low efficiency in denitrification andcomplicated reaction processes, restrict the development of cathode denitrificationdouble-chamber. This paper researched the following topics based on continuous addingwater: the starting process of cathode denitrification double-chamber MFC, the influence ofammonia migration to the efficiency of MFC’s electricity generation and denitrification, theamount of nitrous oxide produced in the denitrification process. Several conclusions can bedrawn:1. At the stating period of cathode denitrification double-chamber MFC, the imposed DCcurrent will cause a sharp drop in anode electric potential and finally stayed at a constant level,it can also cause a slight increase in the cathode electric potential. The imposed DC powerpromotes the ability of electricity production of both anode and cathode, though thepromotion is not very significant to the cathode.2. The imposed DC power can obviously increase the ability of MFC’s current outputwith the same outer resistivity, and it also contributes to the optimization of MFC’s innerresistivity.3. The output voltage decreases dramatically after the diffusion of ammonia nitrogenfrom anode to cathode and the total nitrogen disposal rate also decreases. The migration ofammonia nitrogen has a significant influence on the electricity production performance and nitrogen disposal of microbe fuel cell.4. Different concentration of NO3-N, NO2-N, NH4-N, N2O in Cathode dentrificationdouble-chamber MFC has different variation trend under different ammonia nitrogen anddissolved oxygen concentration. here comes to a conclusion that without control of dissolvedoxygen, cathode will happen nitrification, denitrification, shortcut-nitrification denitrificationand a series of nitrous oxide may be produced.