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Electricity generation from carbon monoxide and syngas in a microbial fuel cell

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Abstract

Electricity generation in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) has been a subject of significant research efforts. MFCs employ the ability of electricigenic bacteria to oxidize organic substrates using an electrode as an electron acceptor. While MFC application for electricity production from a variety of organic sources has been demonstrated, very little research on electricity production from carbon monoxide and synthesis gas (syngas) in an MFC has been reported. Although most of the syngas today is produced from non-renewable sources, syngas production from renewable biomass or poorly degradable organic matter makes energy generation from syngas a sustainable process, which combines energy production with the reprocessing of solid wastes. An MFC-based process of syngas conversion to electricity might offer a number of advantages such as high Coulombic efficiency and biocatalytic activity in the presence of carbon monoxide and sulfur components. This paper presents a discussion on microorganisms and reactor designs that can be used for operating an MFC on syngas.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Natural Sciences and Engineer Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for financial support (NRC publication no. 53353).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, 6100 Royalmount Ave, Montreal, QC, Canada, H2P 2R2

    Abid Hussain, Serge R. Guiot, Punita Mehta & Boris Tartakovsky

  2. Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada, H9X 3V9

    Abid Hussain & Vijaya Raghavan

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  1. Abid Hussain
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  2. Serge R. Guiot
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  5. Boris Tartakovsky
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Correspondence to Boris Tartakovsky.

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Hussain, A., Guiot, S.R., Mehta, P. et al. Electricity generation from carbon monoxide and syngas in a microbial fuel cell. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 90, 827–836 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3188-4

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