article · Materials Science for Energy Technologies
Microbial fuel cells offer an alternative route to generate clean, reliable energy directly from organic waste effluents. These devices rely on electroactive microorganisms to break down pollutants and convert chemical energy into electricity. While many systems avoid expensive transition metal oxide catalysts, alternative electrode materials are being developed to improve efficiency. Specifically, nanocomposites combining manganese oxide and nickel oxide with conducting polymers such as polypyrrole and polyaniline are emerging as effective biocatalysts. These hybrid materials support both bioelectricity generation and bioremediation across diverse pollutant streams. By simultaneously treating wastewater discharges and producing green power, these systems address energy shortages and environmental contamination. Current developments focus on evaluating these nanocomposite catalysts to enhance performance across varied organic fuel sources.
Addressing both wastewater pollution and energy shortages requires sustainable, multi-purpose technologies. Microbial fuel cells achieve dual benefits by cleansing contaminated effluents while capturing useful electrical energy. Developing effective nanocomposite biocatalysts from manganese oxide, nickel oxide, and conducting polymers helps make these systems more viable, reducing dependence on expensive materials and supporting cleaner, low-carbon waste management practices.
The technology could enable wastewater treatment facilities and industrial polluters to generate on-site electricity while neutralising organic waste effluents. The use of manganese and nickel oxide nanocomposites with conducting polymers provides an alternative to expensive catalysts. However, because the abstract describes a review of recent developments and emerging material concepts, the technology appears to be at an early research stage rather than near commercial deployment.
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Producing renewable energy from renewable waste effluents are a promising and alternative way to reduce energy crises. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are thus a unique energy conversion devices capable of converting the stored chemical energy from waste matters which are pollutants in to renewable, reliable, and non-polluting energy sources through the action of electroactive microorganisms. It is an emerging and promising technology device to treat wastes with reducing energy crisis and global warming by producing green energy. It uses a wide variety of organic matters as a fuel and mostly do not use an expensive transition metal oxide (TMO) based biocatalyst. Newer concepts in manganese oxide based nickel oxide (NiO) nanocomposites in the presence of conducting polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy) and polyaniline (PANI) as a biocatalyst for the development of alternative electrode materials along with innovative bioremediations have been made MFCs very promising technology. Therefore, this article provides a brief review of recent biocatalyst developments that have been applied in MFCs so far, with their bioelectricity generation and wastewater utilization from different pollutant discharges.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.mset.2019.11.001
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