Synthesis of hydrogen peroxide in microbial fuel cell

✍ Scribed by Lei Fu; Shi-Jie You; Feng-lin Yang; Ming-ming Gao; Xiao-hong Fang; Guo-quan Zhang

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 190 KB
• Volume: 85
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2575
• DOI: 10.1002/jctb.2367

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Hydrogen peroxide (H~2~O~2~) is an important chemical product, and this study investigated its synthesis at the cathode of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) system using spectrographically pure graphite (SPG) rods as cathode electrode.

RESULTS: Electrochemical methods showed that oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on SPG mainly followed the two‐electron pathway yielding H~2~O~2~, while, the optimal condition for H~2~O~2~ production was in 0.1 mol L^−1^ Na~2~SO~4~ electrolyte. When SPG was used as the cathodic electrode in the MFC system, H~2~O~2~ concentration reached 78.85 mg L^−1^ after 12 h operation with an external resistance of 20 Ω (H~2~O~2~ production rate was 6.57 mg L^−1^ h^−1^). Coulombic efficiency, current efficiency and COD conversion efficiency were 12.26%, 69.47% and 8.51%, respectively. Repeated experiments proved this system had a stable operating performance.

CONCLUSIONS: H~2~O~2~ was synthesized at the cathode of an MFC, and this study provides a proof‐of‐concept demonstration to realize the process of synthesizing H~2~O~2~ with wastewater. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry