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Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology

Official journal of Universiti Putra Malaysia for scholarly work across science, engineering and related technologies.

e-ISSN 2231-8526 ISSN 0128-7680
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Research article

Fabrication of Single Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (SMFC) Using Soil as a Substrate

Siti Kudnie Sahari, Mohd. Zulhilmi Firdaus Rosli, Amir Maina Butit, Kuryati Kipli, Martin Anyi, Asmahani Awang, Marini Sawawi, Mohamad Rusop Mahmood, Lilik Hasanah, Abdul Rahman Kram, Zaidi Embong and Hafsah Nahrawi

Volume 30, Issue 2 April 2022 Published 1 April 2022
https://doi.org/10.47836/pjst.30.2.14
KeywordsActivated carbon, copper, DC-DC boost converter, graphite, soil microbial fuel cell (SMFC), zinc
Article content

Abstract

This paper presents a Single-chamber Microbial Fuel Cell (SMFC) design by utilizing soil as a substrate with two sets of electrode combinations, which are graphite-activated carbon and copper-zinc of different sizes. It was found that graphite and activated carbon produced greater power density compared to copper and zinc. Moreover, it was observed that the graphite-activated carbon cloth electrode with a bigger surface area of 51cm2, resulted in a higher power density of 904mW/m2. To further improve the voltage production of this model, four SMFCs were stacked in series and connected to a DC-DC boost converter to increase the voltage to 1.482 V for the copper-zinc electrode and 1.722 V for the graphite-activated carbon electrode, respectively, which was sufficient to light up an LED light.
Supporting literature

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