Indexed by:期刊论文

Date of Publication:2010-05-01

Journal:JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Included Journals:SCIE、EI、Scopus

Volume:85

Issue:5

Page Number:715-719

ISSN No.:0268-2575

Key Words:microbial fuel cell; hydrogen peroxide; spectrographically pure graphite; oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract:BACKGROUND: Hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) is an important chemical product, and this study investigated its synthesis at the cathode of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) system using spectrographically pure graphite (SPG) rods as cathode electrode.
   RESULTS: Electrochemical methods showed that oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on SPG mainly followed the two-electron pathway yielding H(2)O(2), while, the optimal condition for H(2)O(2) production was in 0.1 mol L(-1) Na(2)SO(4) electrolyte. When SPG was used as the cathodic electrode in the MFC system, H(2)O(2) concentration reached 78.85 mg L(-1) after 12 h operation with an external resistance of 20 Omega (H(2)O(2) production rate was 6.57 mg L(-1) h(-1)). Coulombic efficiency, current efficiency and COD conversion efficiency were 12.26%, 69.47% and 8.51%, respectively. Repeated experiments proved this system had a stable operating performance.
   CONCLUSIONS: H(2)O(2) was synthesized at the cathode of an MFC, and this study provides a proof-of-concept demonstration to realize the process of synthesizing H(2)O(2) with wastewater. (C) 2010 Society of Chemical Industry