Oxidation of food waste as an organic substrate in a single chamber microbial fuel cell to remove the pollutant with energy generation

Lead (Pb²⁺) is considered a toxic metal ion and has a negative impact on human health. This work demonstrates that the Pb²⁺ ions in wastewater may be reduced using a microbial fuel cell (MFC). The use of waste material as an organic substrate in MFC is the most recent topic of discussion. As a result, the current research focused on using food waste as an organic substrate. In 30 days, the maximum power density was observed at 41.58 mW/m² with a 95 % removal efficiency of Pb²⁺. After 30 days of operation, the cyclic voltammetry curve revealed that the specific capacitance was 0.064F/g. Also, the fitting fuel cell circuit was used to study the effect of charge-solution resistance parameters. The calculated internal resistance was 813.78 Ω on day 30. This is the first comprehensive study on isolating and identifying bacterial species in MFC. Different isolates were found, but the dominant bacterial species were Klebsiella pneumonia, Acinetobacter radioresistents, and Bacillus cereus by 16S rRNA sequencing. These are well-known exoelectrogens and metal-reducing species in the literature.