Microbial fuel cell electric behaviour

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) are particularly appealing for applications where microbial-assisted physico-chemical reactions are involved, such as wastewaters plants, where large quantities of water have to be treated and even a small electric energy production can enhance the sustainability of the process. These cells can find also small-scale application as power source for systems (e.g. distributed wireless sensor network for environmental monitoring) especially when light, or other power source, is scarcely accessible. Efficient power extraction from an MFC system is not straightforward as the electric response of the cell is very complex and extensive investigation is needed to develop power electronics converter topologies and power tracking principles. In this work we experimentally study a single MFC electric behaviour using an active load. The active load is employed to investigate the cell large-signal response and hence extract the polarization curve applying a reference signal from 2*10^-5 Hz (14 hours period) up to 100 kHz (10μs period). The same active load is then employed to investigate how the working point the MFC evolve when a current is drained with a DCDC converter boost-like behaviour.