ANODE MODIFICATION FOR INCREASED POWER GENERATION AND COD REMOVAL IN MICROBIAL FUEL CELLARADHANA SINGH AND ANUBHA KAUSHIKAbstract Energy from waste is one of the newer concepts getting more attention in present time as it has dual advantages of waste reduction and energy production. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology is an environment friendly approach of treating wastewaters and producing electricity. One very important architectural component of MFC is the electrode. Modifications of the electrode can help in increasing the efficiency of MFC. The present study reports comparison of two Microbial fuel cells, one with pretreated anode electrode (TE) and other without any pretreatment serving as control electrode (CE) for power production using distillery wastewater as substrate. Niacin pretreatment was given to graphite brush electrode in a double chamber microbial fuel cell (DMFC). It was found that power density was two times higher in MFC-TE (pretreated electrode) as compared to the MFC- CE (untreated control electrode). Chemical oxygen demand (COD) has also been monitored to calculate the overall COD removal of MFCTE and MFC- CE. COD removal was 15.3% higher in MFC-TE as compared to the MFC- CE. Hence this study successfully helped in improving power generation as well as COD removal in MFC.
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