I am currently working on Paddy type MFC, which has been operated already for more than 3 months, It is nearly a time to harvest, I am getting negative voltage in rice planted MFC since few days.
My assumptions for this conditions are
Replenishment of exudates
oxygen evolved via aerenchyma at the latter phase results in negative voltage.
Any other reasons for this ?
I used to observe same situation when i did plant-MFC using vertiver grass. Just in few days of operation, OCV decreased to negative point meanwhile vertiver was growing very well. Looking back to fundamentals of MFC operation, explanation might relate to decrease of anode's potential. Did you check ORP? Bacteria community also play important roles in this issues. One more thing, did you check the condition of your cathode and anode electrodes?
Thanks for your response,
At start-up, I think it is common to get negative voltage whilst working in PMFC, but my case is at the end. The oxygen released through roots (aerenchyma) is the most probable reason for this making anode at higher potential than cathode. One more reason might be soil devoid of water saturation at this stage since, soil need to be saturated with water for conductivity. However, before harvesting water need to be drained from rice. Seeking experience sharing from someone who particularly worked in paddy.
I too have Vetiver run in some reactors and got negative potential at beginning. However, after 3 days of operation, VPMFC showed positive value throughout the period ( operated for 75 days already).
Dear Assoc. Prof. Dr. Deb,
Thank you for your time. My experiment was conducted to generate power mimicking real field condition without any desired output rather analyzing in situ performance. . My focus was to unveil the biosystem performance in term of electricity generation subject to effect of plant growth behavior and other some operational conditions. Though i did not apply feedback control mechanism for desired output but I compared planted reactors with un-planted ( control) for better insight.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Botany
- Plant Biology
- Plant Biotechnology