Conference article

Sustainable Energy from Dairy Farm Waste Using A Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC)

XiaoNan Zhang
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University Park, Nottingham

Laura Porcu
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University Park, Nottingham

John M. Andresen
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University Park, Nottingham

Download articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.3384/ecp11057247

Published in: World Renewable Energy Congress - Sweden; 8-13 May; 2011; Linköping; Sweden

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 57:33, p. 247-250

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Published: 2011-11-03

ISBN: 978-91-7393-070-3

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

A dairy farm waste which include milk waste; unconverted feed and bedding; cow manure and cow slurry water have been applied as raw materials to produce renewable energy using a continuous flow membrane-less microbial fuel cell (MFC). The COD content decreased with 98% from 33;600 J/L to 558 J/L within 6 days by turning the organic content into electricity and hydrogen. The voltage generated reached a peak of 1.6136mV; which indicating that dairy farm waste can be an appropriate resource for MFC. The total energy of hydrogen gas was 38;338J/L on the sixth day; which suggesting that about 80% of the energy stored in the COD was transferred into hydrogen gas. The nitrogen content of the farm waste slurry also decreased 20% during the first 24 hours indicating that MFC can be used for nitrogen harvesting.

Keywords

Biomass fuel; Renewable energy; Dairy farm; MFC; hydrogen production

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