Performance and microbial community of carbon nanotube fixed-bed microbial fuel cell continuously fed with hydrothermal liquefied cornstalk biomass

Zhidan Liu; Yanhong He; Ruixia Shen; Zhangbing Zhu; Xin-Hui Xing; Baoming Li; Yuanhui Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2015.03.021

Performance and microbial community of carbon nanotube fixed-bed microbial fuel cell continuously fed with hydrothermal liquefied cornstalk biomass

Bioresour Technol. 2015 Jun:185:294-301. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.03.021. Epub 2015 Mar 9.

Authors

Zhidan Liu¹, Yanhong He², Ruixia Shen², Zhangbing Zhu², Xin-Hui Xing³, Baoming Li², Yuanhui Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Environment-Enhancing Energy (E2E), and Key Laboratory of Agricultural Engineering in Structure and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Laboratory of Environment-Enhancing Energy (E2E), and Key Laboratory of Agricultural Engineering in Structure and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁴ Laboratory of Environment-Enhancing Energy (E2E), and Key Laboratory of Agricultural Engineering in Structure and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China; Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.

PMID: 25780905
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.03.021

Abstract

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a green technology for biomass pretreatment with the omission of hazardous chemicals. This study reports a novel integration of HTL and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) fixed-bed microbial fuel cell (FBMFC) for continuous electricity generation from cornstalk biomass. Two FBMFCs in parallel achieved similar performance fed with cornstalk hydrolysate at different organic loading rates (OLRs) (0.82-8.16g/L/d). About 80% of Chemical oxygen demand (COD) and Total organic carbon (TOC) was removed from low-Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)/COD (0.16) cornstalk hydrolysate at 8.16g/L/d, whereas a maximum power density (680mW/m(3)) was obtained at 2.41g/L/d, and a smallest internal resistance (Rin) (28Ω) at 3.01g/L/d. Illumina MiSeq sequencing reveals the diverse microbial structure induced by the complex composition of cornstalk hydrolysate. Distinguished from Proteobacteria, which a number of exoelectrogens belong to, the identified dominant genus Rhizobium in FBMFC was closely related to degradation of cellulosic biomass.

Keywords: Cornstalk; Hydrothermal liquefaction; Microbial community; Microbial fuel cell.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bioelectric Energy Sources*
Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis
Biomass*
Cellulose / chemistry
Electrolytes
Hydrolysis
Lignin / chemistry
Nanotubes, Carbon / chemistry*
Polysaccharides / chemistry
Proteobacteria / genetics*
Proteobacteria / metabolism
Water / chemistry
Zea mays

Substances

Electrolytes
Nanotubes, Carbon
Polysaccharides
Water
hemicellulose
Cellulose
Lignin