MICROBIAL FUEL CELL ELECTRIC BEHAVIOUR

D.G. Finarelli*, A. Callegari, E. Dallago*, A. Liberale*, S. Dan

*Electrical and Information Engineering Department, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, email: daniele.finarelli@unipv.it
Civil Engineering and Architecture Department, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

Electric Department, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai, China

Keywords: Microbial fuel cell, Renewable energy, Clean

power generation, Wastewater disposal.

Abstract
Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) are particularly appealing for
applications where microbial-assisted physico-chemical
reactions are involved, such as wastewaters plants, where
large quantities of water have to be treated and even a small
electric energy production can enhance the sustainability of
the process. These cells can find also small-scale application
as power source for systems (e.g. distributed wireless sensor
network for environmental monitoring) especially when light,
or other power source, is scarcely accessible. Efficient power
extraction from an MFC system is not straightforward as the
electric response of the cell is very complex and extensive
investigation is needed to develop power electronics
converter topologies and power tracking principles. In this
work we experimentally study a single MFC electric
behaviour using an active load. The active load is employed
to investigate the cell large-signal response and hence extract
the polarization curve applying a reference signal from 2*10-5
Hz (14 hours period) up to 100 kHz (10s period). The same
active load is then employed to investigate how the working
point the MFC evolve when a current is drained with a DCDC converter boost-like behaviour.

1 Introduction
Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) are being developed in the last
few years as they are particularly interesting for applications
where microbial assisted physico-chemical reactions are
involved. Wastewater plants in which large quantities of
water have to be treated, can benefit from the introduction of
such a technology. There are some points where the
contribution of MFCs to make water treatment process more
sustainable can be remarkable: water treatment with
anaerobic digesters suffer from slow pollutant reduction rates,
while aerobic systems need expensive air pumping in water
and suffer from fast bacteria mass increase that have to be
managed as special waste. MFCs can help large scale plant to
limit these problems: water can be kept in anaerobic
conditions but immersed bacteria in the anode operate
aerobic-like, enjoying high pollutant reduction rates, due to
the cooperation with the cathode bacteria while bacteria mass
increase can be kept under control as electric power can be
directly extracted from the process limiting the energy

available for population increase [1]. Effective electric power

extraction is not straightforward as the MFC system has a
very complex behaviour and maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) is an issue. For harvesting applications problems due
to low voltage and very low power available are faced
employing charge pump devices not optimized for MPPT
function while switching converter are proposed including
some MPPT strategy to be determined[2-7]. To increase
control on output power from an MFC system it is important
to produce electric models considering high frequency
behaviour. From literature electric characterization have been
focussed on steady state behaviour with the definition of
polarization curves (current-voltage curves) which need
considerable efforts to be properly performed [8,9], usually
employing several load resistance steps to scan the active
region of the cell. In the following sections the MFC used for
the experiment is presented, the active load and the electric
solicitations are introduced. Extracted polarization curve and
boost converter-like load are shown and discussed..

2 MFC
The MFC used in this work is membrane-less, single-chamber
cell operating in batch mode with an open air cathode. The
volume of the anodic chamber is approximately 0.1L and both
anode and cathode are equipped with carbon cloth. No
catalyst has been employed at the cathode. A photo and a
schematic picture of the cell is provided in Figure 1). This cell
is filled with raw wastewater and 3g/L sodium acetate was
added on a weekly base. Previous works give details about
cell preparation technique, electrodes and electrochemical
behaviour [10-12]. Bacteria found operating on anodes and
cathodes were mostly anaerobic species including sulphatereduction bacteria [12]. Testing have been performed at room
temperature, 20C..

3 Electronic active load

An active load is employed to apply and arbitrary electric
solicitation to the MFC under investigation. Such a load is
capable to sustain any voltage the cell may require while
delivering or sinking any current. Hence the MFC can be
investigated under every condition. Figure 2) shows the active
load circuit. The load is composed of a power amplifier and a
sensing resistor Rsense. It can be operated in voltage mode (see
figure 2a), as the voltage is imposed to the cell while the
amplifier manage all the current the MFC deliver; otherwise it
can be operated in current mode (see figure 2b) and the

voltage is imposed to the sense resistor, hence a current is

forced in the MFC and the amplifier sustain the voltage
requested by the cell.

4 Large-signal load
Figure 3) shows the polarization curves for the present MFC.
Three configurations are visible: figure 3a) shows
polarization curves for cycle period < 0.1s; figure 3b) shows
polarization curves for cycle period between 0.1s and 100s;
figure 3c) shows the polarization curve for 5000s and 50000s
period (14 hours) period. In each figure the polarization curve
for 0.1s period is included for reference.

Figure 1: Picture and schematic of the employed Microbial

Fuel Cell loaded with a fixed resistor.

Figure 2: Electric schematic for the two different active load

configuration: a) voltage mode active load; b) current mode
active load.
The voltage imposed to the system is delivered to the
amplifier as the reference voltage Vref.
Two different loads have been considered: large-signal load
and small-signal load.
Large signal load employ voltage mode circuit to apply to the
MFC the full voltage from somewhat less than 0 up to
somewhat higher than open circuit voltage and produce a
polarization curve. The applied voltage is triangular with
equal rise and fall time. The MFC is investigated using
different triangle cycle period from 10s (100kHz) up to 14
hours (2*10-5 Hz).
Small signal load is applied to simulate a boost-like switching
DC-DC converter solicitation on the MFC and use current
mode active load configuration. An average current equal to
the half of the MFCs short circuit current is delivered and a
symmetric triangle ripple is superimposed. Current ripple is
approximately 5% of MFCs short circuit current while the
frequency is set at 20kHz.

Figure 3: polarization (voltage-current) curves for different

triangular forcing voltage period: a) fast solicitation period <
100ms, b) period between 100ms and 100s; c) slow
solicitation, period 5000s and 50000s. 100ms curve is
included for reference.

5 Small-signal load
Figure 4) shows the 4 hour period given to the MFC system to
stabilize after the boost-like current is imposed 0.75mA
average value, 20kHz triangle symmetric 0.15mA ripple.
Figure 5) shows the polarization curves for 14 hours period
and 0,1 s period together with the area explored during the
small-signal load transient.

a proper converter and eventually a strategy for maximum

power point tracking.

Acknowledgements
The collaboration of many colleagues is acknowledged: Prof.
Cristiani for the availability of the MFC and the permanent
support, Prof. Torelli, Capodaglio and Dott. Pantaleoni for the
valuable discussions.

References

Figure 4): MFC output voltage during the boost-like current

solicitation, 0.75mA average value, 0.15mA triangle
symmetric ripple.

Figure 5): MFC polarization curves for 50000s, 100ms and

current-voltage region explored by boost like solicitation
(triangle marks)

6 Conclusions
Large-signal investigations shows that actual behaviour of the
MFC is extraordinary complex and good long-term electric
behaviour have been obtained only for rise/fall time in excess
of some hours. Lower sweep time shows the presence of a
significant difference between rising and falling side of the
solicitation and should not be treated as steady state
behaviour. Extreme care should be given to the production of
polarization curves and both rising and falling solicitation
should be considered to verify proper curve is obtained.
Small-signal behaviour shows that the MFC has an extremely
non linear response to the introduction of an high frequency
perturbation and extensive investigation is needed to develop

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