­Valorization of Persimmon Waste for Sustainable Bioelectricity Production in a Soil-Mediated Single-Chamber Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

The global electricity shortage is not just a figment of the imagination, but a real fact that still opens up great shortage underscores the potential of Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) research's technology as a renewable energy system converting organic waste into electricity in support of SDG 7. This study demonstrated a microbial fuel cells (MFCs) as bio-electrochemical devices which used to generate bioelectricity from a wide range of substrates by using bioelectrogenic microorganisms, and have special interest to supply the energy demands for small devices as a energy harvesting while the persimmon fruit production in Japan is relatively abundant, such as in 2011 reached 207.5 thousand tons. During the harvest and post-harvest time, about 10% large amounts of fruit, especially their peels, are generated as waste. It caused a waste disposal problem. In order to get an efficient and eco-friendly solution for organic waste especially to provide green and safe electricity from organics waste, a blend of soil and persimmon fruit waste were tested as a solid waste management option by a MFC method. The blends were tested in a membrane-less single chamber microbial fuel cells devices to generate bioelectricity along with biotransformation of persimmon wastes, over a testing time of 45 days and with some modification of resistor operation. The results in the experiments have shown good relationship among substrate and the performance of output voltage in the MFC, the highest value of output voltage in the MFC which contained a blend of 25:75 of persimmon and soil was 127.2 mV. While, for the MFC which contained a blend of 40:60 of persimmon wastes and leaf mold the highest value of output voltage was 98.3 mV.  The proposed MFC can provide sustainable green and safe electricity from recycle and reuse of organic waste.