Bioelectricity from Organic Solid Waste

*M. Azizul Moqsud*

## **Abstract**

Resource recovery and recycling of organic waste is a great challenge in the world. The unmanaged organic waste causes a great damage to the environment and the public health both in the developing countries and industrial parts of the world. In this research, an innovative method was adopted to generate bioelectricity from the organic waste by using the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC). Various types of organic wastes such as livestock waste, food waste, fruit waste were used as the substrates of the microbial fuel cell. All the experiments were carried out in the same sized one chamber microbial fuel cell and the similar electrode materials. It was observed that all the organic wastes can be used to generate bioelectricity through microbial fuel cell. The generated electricity can be used in several environmental monitoring sensors and can be used as an alternate power source in the developing countries. The by-products of the bioelectricity generation can be used as soil conditioner in the organic depleted soil and agricultural fields.

**Keywords:** organic waste, bioelectricity, voltage generation, soil conditioner

## **1. Introduction**

#### **1.1 Organic waste state**

Organic waste is generated in our everyday life. The amount of organic waste is increasing all over the world. By comparing other types of waste materials such as plastic waste, paper waste or metal waste, organic waste is the least cared waste in the world. The recycling rate of organic waste is not prominent both in developing countries and the developed countries. In Japan, the organic waste is burnt in the incineration plants [1]. However, to burn the organic waste is not good as the calorific value of the organic waste was not so high. The higher content of moisture of the organic waste can reduce the calorific value. The unmanaged organic waste has created several environmental pollutions and health hazards, especially in the developing countries. The traditional method of organic waste management such as composting is often not suitable and caused problems in the urban areas [2]. The landfill of organic waste is again causing a huge burden to the waste collection systems and the transportation and final disposal system in the hot and humid countries. So, to find some innovative method to recycle and resource recovery from organic waste is very crucial in recent time.

#### **1.2 Microbial fuel cell to generate electricity**

Microbial fuel cell is a biochemical device in where the bacteria can decompose the organic contents and generate the electricity [2–6]. In the previous research,

it was observed that this MFC method can be used to clean the wastewater, bioremediated the sulfide contaminated sediment, and consequently bioelectricity generation [7–9]. The benefit of this method is that it can generate bioelectricity while cleaning the environment. Moqsud et al. showed that MFC can also generate electricity from the organic waste in a compost type MFC [1]. Since then, other researchers are trying to use this novel technology to generate bioelectricity and recycling the organic waste as a resource recovery options from the organic waste. The modified version of MFC with the employment of plants are called the plant microbial fuel cell (PMFC). It was observed that in PMFC, by using the compost from the organic waste, the bioelectricity can be generated more [3].

#### **1.3 World energy status**

Due to the population increase in the world, the demand of clean energy is increasing day by day. It needs to find the new source of electricity as most of the fossil fuels are decreasing. The global warming challenge make this problem more critical. To find a new source of green energy is the major challenge in the world in this current state of the world. In this background, microbial fuel cell can be a potential candidate for the future green energy in the world. The accidents of nuclear power plant are devastating in many cases. So, it is also needed to generate bioelectricity from the safe source for the sustainable future generations.

The main objective of this research is that to evaluate the efficiency of the MFC by using the different types of organic wastes. Another objective is to check the feasibility of organic content as a soil conditioner from the by-products of bioelectricity generation.
