Microbial Fuel Cells Reinforced with Nanoparticles: Enhancing Performance and Durability

The global demand for clean and sustainable energy has accelerated the development of fuel cell technologies as viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Despite their high efficiency and low environmental impact, commercialization is hindered by challenges such as high costs, sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics, and long-term durability issues. The integration of nanoparticles (NPs) into fuel cell components—specifically catalysts, membranes, and electrode layers—has emerged as a transformative solution. This article reviews recent advancements (۲۰۱۹–۲۰۲۴) in reinforcing fuel cells with nanoparticles, highlighting improvements in catalytic activity, proton conductivity, and thermal stability. In this paper, the study of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is a promising technology that converts chemical energy in organic materials (such as sewage) directly to electricity and simultaneously helps wastewater treatment. However, low efficiency of energy conversion and low power density are the main obstacles to commercialization of these technologies. The proposed strategy is the use of nanoparticles (metal, oxide, carbon) to improve the performance of microbial fuel cells through, increasing electrical conductivity and active area of the electrodes, facilitating electron transfer between microbes and electrode, improving the catalytic activity and formation of microbial biofilm, reduction of internal resistance of the system. Practical part of the study: a simple microbial fuel cell was designed and built. At first, the performance without nanoparticles was measured, and then by adding nano polymer to the salt bridge, a significant increase in electrical power was observed.

کلیدواژه ها:

microbial Fuel Cells ، Nanoparticles ، Durability ، reinforcing