Electricity generation from lignocellulosic biomass using microbial fuel cell technologies

Large quantities of crop residues and agro-industrial by-products such as sugarcane bagasse, corncob, and date palm ?etc., are produced annually in many countries, and are vastly underutilized. The common uses of these residues back into the soil as a fertilizer, or they are burnt, left to decompose, or grazed by cattle. However, these residues could be processed by the action of microorganisms to produce different enzymes. Other application of agro-industrial by-products, that it can be used for bio-electricity production using microbial fuel cells technology. The microbial fuel cells (MFCs) oxidize the organic substrates into electricity by specific bacteria attached to the electrode. A preliminary study in our lab at SQU and NVU, showed that ability of some microorganisms to produce high amount of lignocellulosic degrading enzymes and the ability of these microorganisms to produce electricity from different agro-industrial substrates (sugarcane bagasse, corncob, wheat straw, potato wastes). Also, bioelectricity was produced from agro-industrial by-products as electron donor and potassium ferricyanide as catholyte. The results are very promising and need further studies to be fruitful.