My publications

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are considered renewable energy sources in recent years. Their major advantages are energy production, wastewater treatment, and application of microorganisms as available and inexpensive biocatalysts. In this study, the electrophoretic deposition of CuO/ZnO nanoparticles on the surface of graphite electrode and also the performance of the modified electrode as the cathode of an H-type MFC were investigated, for the first time. FESEM, XRD, EDX, and elemental mapping were used to characterize the nanoparticles and the modified electrode. According to the FESEM and elemental mapping analyses, the nanoparticle immobilization was homogeneous on the surface of the electrode. The ability of the modified electrode was investigated on decreasing the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) overpotential. The MFC performance was evaluated with and without visible light irradiation. The maximum voltage of 363.5 mV was achieved by the modified graphite electrode under the irradiation after 47 h. This maximum voltage was 32.22% higher than that of the bare graphite. The maximum power density of the modified electrode was 51.84 mW m−2 at a current density of 144 mA m−2, i.e. 2.74 times of the bare graphite under visible light irradiation. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) were used to evaluate the electrochemical behavior of the modified electrode, showing the improvement of the electrochemical activity of the modified graphite compared with the bare one.