Abstract
This study investigated the effect of co-culturing the photobiont and mycobiont in the microbial fuel cell (MFC) cathode on biomass production, lipid generation, and power output. Chlorella vulgaris provides oxygen and nutrients for the yeast Cystobasidium oligophagum JRC1, while the latter offers CO2 and quench oxygen for higher algal growth. The MFC with co-culture enhanced the lipid output of biomass by 28.33%, and the total yield and productivity were 1.47 ± 0.18 g/l and 0.123 g/l/day, respectively. Moreover, with co-culture, the open circuit voltage of 685 ± 11 mV was two times higher than algae alone. The specific growth rate (day−1) at the cathode was 0.367 ± 0.04 in co-culture and 0.288 ± 0.05 with C. vulgaris only. The power density of the system was 5.37 ± 0.21 mW/m2 with 75.88 ± 1.89% of COD removal. The co-culture thus proved beneficial at the MFC cathode in terms of total energy output as 11.5 ± 0.035 kWh/m3, which was 1.4-fold higher than algae alone.
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The authors thank the Ministry of Human Resource and Development for the fellowship and the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur (IITJ) for its research facilities.
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Both the authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Akanksha Mishra. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Akanksha Mishra, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The project was supervised by Meenu Chhabra.
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Mishra, ., Chhabra, M. Co-culturing Chlorella vulgaris and Cystobasidium oligophagum JRC1 in the microbial fuel cell cathode for lipid biosynthesis. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29232-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29232-y