The internal resistance of a microbial fuel cell and its dependence on cell design and operating conditions

The internal resistance Rint of a mediator-less microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been determined as a function of cell voltage using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) for a MFC with and without Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. The same tests were performed for a MFC containing small stainless steel (SS) balls in the anode compartment with a graphite feeder electrode as in a packed bed cell. It has been found that Rint decreased with decreasing cell voltage as the increasing current flow decreases the polarization resistance of the anode and the cathode. The ohmic components of Rint played a very minor role. In the presence of MR-1 Rint was lower by a factor of about 100 than Rint of the MFC with buffer and lactate as anolyte. Rint was also significantly lower for the anode containing SS balls with buffer and lactate as anolyte. For the MFC containing SS balls in the anode compartment no significant further decrease of Rint could be obtained when MR-1 was added to the anolyte since in this case the polarization resistance of the anode was lower than that of the cathode. Similar trends were observed in the cell voltage (V)–current (I) curves that were obtained using potentiodynamic sweeps and the power (P)–V curves that were calculated from the V–I curves.