Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Introduction Slaughter house and meat processing industries discharge the most harmful wastes to water bodies and the environment at large. 1 Discharging of these wastes without treatment greatly affect aquatic life as well as polluting drinking water. 2 Slaughter house wastes are considered to have bacterial and viral pathogens which may infect both humans and animals with water borne diseases. 3 Researchers have investigated different methods used in abattoir waste disposal. Effectiveness and effciency of the method used is considered with regards to pathogen inactivation. 3 Commonly used methods include alkaline hydrolysis, incineration, and composting, anaerobic digestion. Among these methods, only alkaline hydrolysis completely deactivates the microbes. 3 In the alkaline hydrolysis method, biological substances are hydrolyzed using sodium or potassium hydroxide. This new technology employs temperature of 100°C and pressure of 103 kpa for 3h to destroy pathogens. 4,5 In anaerobic digestion, organic wastes are degraded in an oxygen free environment. This produces biogas and agricultural sludge. 6,7 Dagoretti slaughterhouse produces thousands of liters of rumen fuid daily. The fuid consists of methanogenic bacteria which could be used for biogas production as well as bio–catalyst in microbial fuel cells. 8 Currently, the fuid from Dagoretti and Kiamaiko slaughter houses are dumped into the drainage system and washed away to Nairobi River. This has pollution effects considering that the water is used for domestic purposes. Both market and slaughter houses wastes have been associated with water borne diseases. This study proposes an alternative for slaughter houses wastes disposal like composting, incineration. 3 Materials and methods Microbial fuel cells setups were fabricated using readily available materials as described by Kamau et al. 9 The salt bridge was made up of 3% agarose in sodium chloride. Graphite rods from used dry cells were used as electrodes. The fruits used in this study were spoilt and collected from Kangemi and Wakulima market wastes bin. Fruit wastes with rumen fuid To investigate the potential of rumen fuid in digestion of fruit wastes for electricity generation, 500g of water melon, avocado, banana, tomato and mango was chopped and blended using a kitchen blender and added to the anodic chamber of H–shaped microbial fuel cells (MFC). Rumen fuid (250ml) from Dagoretti slaughter house was added and mixed. The anodic chamber was sealed tightly after attaching the electrode attached to the copper wire. About 750ml distilled water was added to the cathodic chamber with the electrode attached to the copper wire. A mixture of about 100g of water melon, avocado, banana, tomato and mango was added to the anodic chamber before introducing 250ml rumen fuid. In others set ups, a mixture of mango and avocado was added 250ml, 350ml and 500ml rumen fuid. The set–ups were sealed and linked to the cathodic chamber with a salt bridge. Current and voltage were recorded daily using a digital voltmeter. Microbial fuel cells parameter optimization Studies were carried out to optimize MFC operation conditions. These studies involved use of avocados and varying electrode surface area, varying external resistance as well as varying rumen J Appl Biotechnol Bioeng. 2018;5(4):227‒231. 227 © 2018 Kamau et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Utilization of rumen fuid in production of bio– energy from market waste using microbial fuel cells technology Volume 5 Issue 4 - 2018 Kamau JM, Mbui DN, Mwaniki JM, Mwaura FB Department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi, Kenya Correspondence: Kamau JM, Department of Chemistry, School of Biological Sciences, University of Nairobi, 30197- 00100 NAIROBI, Kenya, Tel 254724305124, Email djames085@gmail.com Received: May 10, 2018 | Published: July 27, 2018 Abstract Environmental Protection Agency classifies slaughter house waste as one of the most toxic environmental pollutants due to high pathogen content. Composting and anaerobic digestion are among the most common methods used for its disposal. In this study, utilization of rumen fluid as bio– catalyst in microbial fuel cells is investigated. Different market wastes were converted to electricity by loading them in anodic anaerobic chamber and then adding rumen fluid from Dagoretti slaughterhouse. 0.584V was obtained on day 19 from avocado fruit waste while the maximum voltage for tomato waste was 0.701V on day 20. Water melon and fruits mixture produced the least voltage. The maximum power from the tested substrate was obtained from tomato wastes. The power and current density were in the range of 1.825 to 60.041mW/m 2 and 6.762 and 99.174mA/m 2 respectively for tomato wastes. A maximum voltage of 0.584V was obtained from tomato wastes when 500ml rumen fluid was used while 0.248Vwas obtained for avocado fruit waste with the same amount of rumen fluid. Electrode surface area of 0.006666m 2 gave the highest voltage and power amongst 0.00399m 2 and 0.01331m 2 . When the influence of external resistors was investigated, power, voltage and current obtained across a 45kΩ were 0.385V, 0.038Ma and 0.01463mW on day 7 respectively for tomato wastes. Keywords: rumen fluid, voltage, current, resistance, microbes, market wastes Journal of Applied Biotechnology & Bioengineering Research Article Open Access