March 20, 2013
CRITIQUE PAPER IN ChE 426N
The research paper is entitled “Electricity generation from synthetic substrates and cheese whey using a two chamber microbial fuel cell”. The authors are Georgia Antonopoulou, Katerina Stamatelatou, Symeon Bebelis, and Gerasimos Lyberatos from the Department of Chemical Engineering in the University of Patras in Greece. The research paper is taken from pages 10 to 15 of the Biochemical Engineering Journal, Volume 50. In this study, the possibility of electricity generation from diluted cheese whey in a two-chamber mediator-less microbial fuel cell (MFC) was investigated. The research aims to generate electricity using glucose, lactose, and cheese whey wastewater as substrates. It also aims to compare the performance of a MFC using synthetic sugars, such as glucose and lactose, to that of the same MFC when using raw wastewater, such as cheese whey, as substrate.
The title of the article is appropriate and clear in such a way that readers can grasp an idea of the research by just reading it. The abstract is specific and is a representative of the article, although it takes a second look to realize that the research would involve electricity generation from synthetic substrates such as glucose and fructose, and from cheese whey. The research problem is attention-grabbing and timely since there is recently an emerging interest focused on the energy recovery from wastes. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is gaining promising interest in the research fraternity and represents a promising approach for generating electricity from biomass using bacteria. MFC are bio-electrochemical systems which facilitate direct transformation of chemical energy stored in bio-convertible waste to electrical energy via a series of bio-electrochemical reactions in defined fuel cell.
Because of its high organic content, cheese whey disposal constitutes a