Power generation from furfural using the microbial fuel cell

Furfural is a typical inhibitor in the ethanol fermentation process using lignocellulosic hydrolysates as raw materials. In the literature, no report has shown that furfural can be utilized as the fuel to produce electricity in the microbial fuel cell (MFC), a device that uses microbes to convert organic compounds to generate electricity. In this study, we demonstrated that electricity was successfully generated using furfural as the sole fuel in both the ferricyanide-cathode MFC and the air-cathode MFC. In the ferricyanide-cathode MFC, the maximum power densities reached 45.4, 81.4, and 103 W m−3, respectively, when 1000 mg L−1 glucose, a mixture of 200 mg L−1 glucose and 5 mM furfural, and 6.68 mM furfural were used as the fuels in the anode solution. The corresponding Coulombic efficiencies (CE) were 4.0, 7.1, and 10.2% for the three treatments, respectively. For pure furfural as the fuel, the removal efficiency of furfural reached up to 95% within 12 h. In the air-cathode MFC using 6.68 mM furfural as the fuel, the maximum values of power density and CE were 361 mW m−2 (18 W m−3) and 30.3%, respectively, and the COD removal was about 68% at the end of the experiment (about 30 h). Increase in furfural concentrations from 6.68 to 20 mM resulted in increase in the maximum power densities from 361 to 368 mW m−2, and decrease in CEs from 30.3 to 20.6%. These results indicated that some toxic and biorefractory organics such as furfural might still be suitable resources for electricity generation using the MFC technology.