Performance Assessment of Commercial Bacteria in Microbial Fuel Cells Designed Using Dry Cell Components

Due to differences in microbial fuel cell designs, it is difficult to establish uniform growth conditions in the bacterial culture. Hence, this study was performed using fourteen known bacterial cultures with commercial applications. These cultures were tested in identical MFCs in triplicate for the duration of 45 consecutive days. The observations of current and voltage were recorded. MFCs cultured with Bacillus megaterium, Azotobacter chroococcum, and Paenibacillus mucilaginosus produced the highest power densities of 721.17 mW/cm2, 540.54 mW/cm2, and 439.56 mW/cm2 across load of 100 Omega respectively. These three species produced highest current of 30 mA, 23.33 mA and 18.86 mA respectively. And these species produced highest voltage of 1421.67 mV, 1427.66 mV and 1371.33 mV respectively. Overall power generation in MFCs with remaining bacterial species and the control set was less than 4.51 mW cm2.