International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research ISSN 2348-6988 (online) Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp: (53-65), Month: January - March 2018, Available at: www.researchpublish.com Page | 53 Research Publish Journals Potentials of Mixed and Axenic Microbial Fuel Cells for Electricity Generation 1 Chisomaga Nwosu, 2 Sylvester Peter Antai, 3 Dominic Reuben Tiku 1,2,3 University of Calabar, Calabar Abstract: The study was aimed at investigating the potentials of mixed and axenic microbial fuel cells for electricity generation. The study was carried out within a period of six months. 500 mls of domestic kitchen waste water was collected from various locations in Calabar Metropolis, into tightly corked plastic containers and transported to the laboratory for analysis. Microbial fuel cell was designed using plastic containers, graphite electrodes, salt bridge and domestic waste water. Microoganisms from the domestic waste water were identified using standard microbiological techniques. Results from the study showed that a higher mean voltage (1.58v) was recorded by microbial fuel cells with mixed consortium ( stacked waste water microbial fuel cell ), as compared to that obtained from microbial fuel cell with axenic culture. Among the bacteria cells identified from the waste water, Salmonella had the highest voltage production (0.68v) as compared to other isolates. The comparative analysis of voltage density of the fuel cells showed that the stacked waste water microbial fuel cells had the highest voltage density (0.072v/m 2 ) compared to others. However, this study has shown that microbial fuel cell technology could serve as a new core technology for conversion of waste to electricity in future. Keywords: axenic microbial fuel cells, microbiological techniques, domestic waste water. 1. INTRODUCTION Energy sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectricity, geothermal among others has been over depended on, to satisfy the growing energy concerns for today and tomorrow, and this has made the search for other options which may involve the exploitation of microbiology and microorganisms as a major stakeholder in energy production of the new age.In the future, renewable energy will constitute a greater portion of the world‘s energy consumption and production (Potter, 2003; Allen &Bennetto,2004; Rabaey &Verstraete, 2003; Davis &Higson, 2003; Ieropoulos et al, 2006; Park &Zerkus, 2000; Tender et al, 2008). Recent predictions for the global energy have lead to the quest for alternative energy resources (Lovley, 2003; Kim et al, 1993; Kim et al, 2003; Bond & Lovley, 2003; Ringeisen et al 2006; He et al, 2005; Niessen et al 2004; Davis and Higson, 2007). The rate of reduction in non renewable sources of energy implies that there is urgent need for highly efficient enegy transformation technologies and ways to use alternativerenewable energy sources( Rosenbaum et al, 2006),. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) technology rpresents a new path of energy production by harvesting electricity from what would have been regarded as a waste material ( Alterman et al, 2006). This technology utilizes mostly anaerobic bacteria which may be present in the waste water and works as catalysts to produce electricity while treating waste water ( Moon et al, 2006). Microorganisms have the capacity to generate electricity from a wide range of organic waste while oxidizing the waste to less harmful forms ( Logan, 2006). Although MFCs generate small amount of power than hydrogen fuel cells, a blend of both electricity generation and waste water treatment could reduce the cost of primary treatmentof effluent waste water (Rabaey et al, 2005).Currently, studies performed on MFCs are concerned with how to increase the power density of the system with regards to the peripheral anode surface area, while little investigation has been carried out on determining the infulence of voltage output in contract to the varying fuel cell components. The main aspect of fuel cell research is to reduce the treatment costs and simplify process implementation conditions (Min et al, 2005). Many of the current relevant research are focused on the development of the ways and means to convert chemical energy stored in biomass to electricity (Kim et al, 2008). The energy transformation from burning of biomass- chemical to heat, and subsequent utilization to heat for different purposes is less efficient ( Kim et al, 2008). Since most rural population depend on subsidized yet scarce electricity supply, a technology such as MFCs can convert the energy stored in organic wastes via enzymatic reactionsassociated with the activity of microorganisms (Min et al, 2005; Rabaey & Versaete, 2003).