Influence of external resistance on the bioelectricity generation and the migration of Cu in a three-chamber microbial fuel cell

In this study, a novel three-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) was constructed in the soil contaminated with Cu, the performance of bioelectricity generation and the migration of Cu in MFC with different external resistance conditions were investigated. The results revealed that the output voltage of the three-chamber MFC increased from 0.1V to 0.4V with the external resistance increased from 100Ω to 1000Ω, and the maximum power density decreased from 1.10W/m3 to 0.71W/m3. The phenomenon of cathode polarization was more obvious with the increase of external resistance. Experimental results showed that the electricity generated by MFCs could significantly facilitate metal removal, the removal efficiency of Cu in soil near anode reached 39.7% with the external resistance of 1000Ω after 63 days. Meanwhile, the modified Community Bureau of Reference (BCR) sequential extraction procedure was applied to characterize the five fractions of heavy metals. It showed that acid extractable and reducible fractions were the two main fractions of Cu migration. In addition, the pH increased gradually from the anode to the cathode in Cu-contaminated soil while the conductivity was opposite. The results of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrated that the Cu (II) which partially migrated to the cathode was reduced to the metal copper. © 2019, Editorial Board of China Environmental Science. All right reserved.