Three-dimensional porous carbon nanotube sponges for high-performance anodes of microbial fuel cells

JOURNAL OF POWER SOURCES

卷:298

Article

Erbay, Celal¹  Yang, Gang²  de Figueiredo, Paul^3,4,5  Sadr, Reza⁶  Yu, Choongho²  Han, Arum^1,7 

[1] Texas A&M Univ, Dept Elect & Comp Engn, College Stn, TX 77843 USA

[2] Texas A&M Univ, Dept Mech Engn, College Stn, TX 77843 USA

[3] Texas A&M Hlth Sci Ctr, Dept Microbial Pathogenesis & Immunol, Bryan, TX 77807 USA

[4] Texas A&M Univ, Dept Vet Pathobiol, College Stn, TX 77843 USA

[5] Texas A&M Univ, Norman Borlaug Ctr, College Stn, TX 77843 USA

[6] Texas A&M Univ Qatar, Mech Engn Program, Doha, Qatar

[7] Texas A&M Univ, Dept Biomed Engn, College Stn, TX 77843 USA

关键词: Microbial fuel cell;    Carbon nanotube sponge;    Three dimensional electrodes;    One-step synthesis;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jpowsour.2015.08.021

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Highly-porous, light-weight, and inexpensive three-dimensional (3D) sponges consisting of interconnected carbon nanotubes (CNTs) without base materials are synthesized with a facile and scalable one-step chemical vapor deposition process as anode of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The MFCs generates higher power densities of 2150 W m(-3) (per anode volume) or 170 W m(-3) (per anode chamber volume), comparable to those of commercial 3D carbon felt electrodes under the same conditions. The high performances are due to excellent charge transfer between CNTs and microbes owing to 13 times lower charge transfer resistance compared to that of carbon felt. The material cost of producing these CNT sponge estimates to be -$0.1/g(CNT), significantly lower than that of other methods. In addition, the high production rate of about 3.6 g h(-1) compared to typical production rate of 0.02 g h(-1) of other CNT-based materials makes this process economically viable. The one-step synthesis method allowing self-assembly of 3D CNT sponges as they grow is low cost and scalable, making this a promising method for manufacturing high-performance anodes of MFCs, with broad applicability to microbial electrochemical systems in general. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free