Direct Electricity Generation Using Human Feces via Microbial Fuel Cells

摘要

Disposing human feces is a troublesome problem in urban area,and so is it in the research of bioregenaration life support system (BLSS) in space life-science.In this research,human feces were used as the fuel of MFC. The removal rate of TCOD,SCOD and NH4+ reached 71%,88% and 44% respectively by twochambered MFC fed with actual human feces. Anaerobic fermentation pretreatment can raise the maximum power density of MFC for about 47%.It is also concluded that enlarging the area of anode,decreasing the distance between electrodes and aerating air into cathode chamber can improve the electricity generation capacity. An automatic human feces MFCs system was successfully established to process one person's feces wastewater (1 L/d) while generating electricity. The maximum power density of a single MFC could reach 240 mW/m2.