Electrochemical performance of microbial fuel cells based on disulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) membranes

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a bio-electrochemical system that drives a current by mimicking bacterial interactions found in nature. Usually, MFCs use Nation as a PEM to separate the electrodes while permitting protons transfer between the anode and cathode. However, Nation is expensive and accounts for a large percentage of the costs in MFC configuration. Here, we show MFCs using hydrocarbon-based PEM, disulfonated poly (arylene ether sulfone) (BPSH), which is considered as one of alternative PEM, and relatively inexpensive as compared with Nation. BPSH membranes exhibit a comparable performance to Nation 212. Especially, BPSH 40 and 60 (mole %) have higher proton conductivity than Nation 212. In a two-chamber system, MFC with BPSH 40 shows higher voltage than that with Nation 212. MFCs with BPSH 20 and 30 show lower voltage decline than other PEMs. In a single-chamber system, a voltage of MFC with BPSH 40 shows about 30% higher (17 mV) than that with Nation 212 (13 mV) with internal resistance of 10 Omega. In addition, The MFC with BPSH 40 produced about 10% higher maximum power density (126 mW m(-2)) than that with Nation 212 (111 mW m(-2)). (C) 2012 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.This research was supported by WCU (World Class University) program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (R31-10092)