Production of electricity from food waste using microbial fuel cell and hydrolytic microorganisms

Globalization and the global economic growth also impact to increasing of food waste production. Processing of food waste management is still using conventional method that can be contaminates pollution for environment and endangers human and animal health. This research aimed to produce electricity while reducing the organic matter from food waste by integrating the hydrolytic microorganism and microbial fuel cells. In this research, food waste was first crushed and diluted at different concentrations. After a simple solid-liquid separation, the liquid was hydrolysed by hydrolytic fungi that produce enzymes at their log phases. Hydrolitic microorganisms that we use, namely Aspergillus aculeatus, Aculeatus oryzae and Candida rugosa. The hydrolysate was mixed with lapindo mud and Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, then fed into the Single Chamber microbial fuel cell (SC-MFC) for electricity production. Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 and Lapindo mud was used in this research to get hight electricity production. Electrigens microorganisms convert organic compounds in substrate into electron and protons that be transferred by electrigens bacteria. The results showed that the best result of power density of 6.652 W/m2 with 89.362% of BOD and 77.273% of COD removal was achieved by ratio of food waste to water was 2:1 M. The best hydrolysis food are mixture of three fungi were able to hydrolyse 39.15 % of food waste into glucose in 24 hours. Therefore, MFC can be greatly enhance food waste degradation to become a carbon source in a microbial fuel cell for electricity production.