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Spatial distribution of bacterial communities on volumetric and planar anodes in single‐chamber air‐cathode microbial fuel cells
Author(s) -
Vargas Ignacio T.,
Albert Istvan U.,
Regan John M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
biotechnology and bioengineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 189
eISSN - 1097-0290
pISSN - 0006-3592
DOI - 10.1002/bit.24949
Subject(s) - microbial fuel cell , planar , cathode , anode , environmental science , spatial distribution , environmental chemistry , materials science , chemistry , geology , electrode , remote sensing , computer graphics (images) , computer science
Pyrosequencing was used to characterize bacterial communities in air‐cathode microbial fuel cells across a volumetric (graphite fiber brush) and a planar (carbon cloth) anode, where different physical and chemical gradients would be expected associated with the distance between anode location and the air cathode. As expected, the stable operational voltage and the coulombic efficiency (CE) were higher for the volumetric anode than the planar anode (0.57 V and CE = 22% vs. 0.51 V and CE = 12%). The genus Geobacter was the only known exoelectrogen among the observed dominant groups, comprising 57 ± 4% of recovered sequences for the brush and 27 ± 5% for the carbon‐cloth anode. While the bacterial communities differed between the two anode materials, results showed that Geobacter spp. and other dominant bacterial groups were homogenously distributed across both planar and volumetric anodes. This lends support to previous community analysis interpretations based on a single biofilm sampling location in these systems. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013;110: 3059–3062. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.