ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1620539
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Understanding the Interplay of Soil Carbon, Iron, and Arsenic TransformationView all 4 articles
The characteristics and driving factors of power generation performances of microbial fuel cell: an analysis based on CNKI database
Provisionally accepted
- Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, China
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Microbial fuel cell (MFC) has become one of the most promising technologies in the field of ecology and environment due to its dual functions of power generation and pollutants removal. However, the general low power generation performances of MFCs is one of the bottlenecks constraining the development of MFCs, and numerous studies have focused on the improvement of power generation performances. In fact, most previous empirical studies were based on single experimental data,which means there may be large differences in experimental conditions and settings leading to various or even contradictory conclusions. Here, we collected a total of 10,826 cases from 186 publications in China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database to quantitatively and systematically investigate the general patterns and driving factors of power generation performances of MFCs. Our results showed that: (1) the power density, voltage, and reaction duration in this study were significantly lower (~25%), while the coulombic efficiency and ambient temperature were significantly higher (13.4-33.1%) than other meta-analysis or review papers; (2) reaction chamber volume and cathode surface area were stronger predictors for most power generation performances indices than other device configuration indices, especially for cathode chamber volume which explained >70% of the variances in power density and coulombic efficiency; (3) ambient temperature, external resistance, and reaction duration had greater effects on power generation performances than other reaction conditions; and (4) substrates with pre-treatment, especially with biological treatment, showed 10-40% higher values for most power generation performance indices than pre-treatment with physical and chemical methods, and solid substrates showed better power generation performances than liquid and fluid substrates for most indices. Our results imply that dual-chamber, larger cathode surface area, neutral pH level, 30-35 ℃ of ambient temperature, and biological pre-treatment of substrates may be helpful in the improvement of power generation performances of MFCs.
Keywords: Electricity performance, MFC, Power density, current density, Coulombic efficiency
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 20 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Wentao, Xiang, Chen, Yi, Li, Zhang, Yang, Xiao and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hongyong Xiang, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, China
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