Performance Comparison of Three Common Proton Exchange Membranes for Sustainable Bioenergy Production in Microbial Fuel Cell

Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) have essential role in the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). They act as a separator and separate anode and cathode compartments and they also transfer protons between anode and cathode. In this study three types of PEMs (Nafion 112, SPEEK and Nafion 117) have been applied to MFC and the amount of produced bioenergy with the feed of a wastewater in 5000 m/l chemical oxygen demand (COD) have been reported. It has been observed that the MFC working with Nafion 117 as separator produced the highest power among the other MFCs. Also It was found that the produced power was 179.7 mW/m2 for Nafion 117 while it was 126.1 for SPEEK and 19.7 for Nafion 112. Moreover it has been concluded that the low power production of Nafion 112 was due to the diffusion of oxygen from the cathode chamber to the anode chamber that disturb the microorganism's metabolism for degradation of organic compounds. Generally we have found a new economic PEM for using in MFCs.