DC-DC BOOST CONVERTER FOR THE APPLICATION OF MFC

Microbial Fuel Cell is a bio-electrochemical device that is used to harvest electrons from anaerobic oxidation substrates for electrical power generations. However, it generates low output voltage that has to be intensified for the application of electronic devices in practical usage. Hence, this paper presents on the design of MFCs by using three different electrodes which are carbon, copper and aluminium as the anode. The combinations of electrodes in MFCs play an important role in the performance of MFCs for the generation of electricity. These three anodes of different materials were compared in terms of its voltage and current output as well as their current density and power density. Another parameter that affects the performance of the MFCs is temperature. The data had been taken five times per day – 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 3p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., within seven days. In order to further increase the production of voltage output for the MFC model, the MFCs with highest output were stacked in series before connecting it to the DC-DC boost converter. Furthermore, the electrodes configuration that showed highest value of voltage were further boosted by the DC-DC boost converter designed in Proteus. From the result, it was observed that the carbon anode produced the highest voltage with a maximum voltage of 0.9V. After stacking it serially by simulation, the voltage increased to 2.87V and finally after being boosted by simulation in Proteus, the final value became 12.6V, which was adequate to operate an LED light. All the objectives, calculations, tests and data collected was documented in this report