The influence of community structure of anode biofilms on microbial fuel cells bioelectricity generation using different inocula

Abstract

The microbial community structure of anode biofilms is important to enhancing the efficiency of electricity production of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). In this experiment, three inocula, river sediment (RS), surface soil (SS) and the deep soil in depth of 1.5 m below the surfaces soil (DS) were used as the source of bacteria in MFCs. MFCs with different initial inocula showed different acclimation time, peak voltage and power density. MFC-RS obtained the maximum power density (773.1 mW m^-2), followed by MFC-DS and MFC-SS. The Microbial relative abundance showed that different inocula had an important effect on the type microbial species in anodic of MFCs. Results found the three samples shared the same predominant phylum of Proteobacteria. Bacteria from the genus Pesudomonas were detected at a remarkably higher frequency in the anodic biofilm formed on the RS (23.1%) than in the biofilms formed on the DS (5.3%) and SS (8.6%).