| Microbial electrolysis (or biocatalyzed electrolysis or BEAMR process) is a recently developed, sustainable technology for hydrogen production from wastewaters. It combines the effective removal of waste material with the production of a valuable product. However, microbial electrolysis is still in the research stage. There are several challenges in the development of a cost-effective hydrogen production process. The ultimate objective for the microbial electrolysis research is to develop: - a microbial electrolysis system that produces at least 10 m3 10 m3 H2/m3 reactor liquid/day at a current density of 10 A/m2 anode area and an electricity input of maximally 1 kWh/m3 H2 (applied voltage of about 0.4V) To reach this performance, the maximum potential loss over the entire cell should be below 0.3 V. As the cathode overpotential is a major source of potential losses the specific objectives of this project are to: - get insight in the cathode performance by performing an ele an electrochemical study of different cathode catalysts under microbial electrolysis conditions - reduce the cathode overpotential by applying altern alternative catalysts - design electrodes that can be used in large scale microb microbial electrolysis systems |
