APS -Joint Fall 2017 Meeting of the Texas Section of the APS, Texas Section of the AAPT, and Zone 13 of the Society of Physics Students- Event - Effects of Nickel, Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes, and Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes/Nickel Nanoparticles on Power Production and Wastewater Treatment of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs)

摘要

Having an abundant amount of waste water makes it necessary to find a more effective way oftreating water. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a clean way of treating water that in the processproduces clean electricity. The problem with this is that MFCs produce very low voltage andhave not been developed to a greater scale. The purpose of this experiment is to coat the cathodeelectrode with different nanoparticles and hopefully reduce the internal resistance of the MFC,resulting in more power and cleaner wastewater. Methods and detections used in this studyinclude electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, polarization curves, chemical oxygen demandtests, nanoparticle production by precipitation method and SEM/EDS for characterization. Theresult obtained was that the internal resistance was maximally reduced by 0.74 k$Omega $ and the powerdensity maximally increased by 1085.524 mW/mextasciicircum 3.