Implementation of Chitosan Modified Ultrafiltration Hollow Fiber as Proton Exchange Membrane of Ml-Scale Microbial Fuel Cells

The study investigated the modification of polyethersulfone (pes), polyvinylidene fluoride (pvdf), and polyacrylonitrile (pan) hollow fiber membranes using a chitosan solution as the proton exchange membrane for microbial fuel cells (mfcs). firstly, the performance of the modified pes membrane using 1, 2, and 3% of chitosan in 0.1 m acetic acid coating was inspected. chitosan coating decreased the internal resistance and enhanced the electricity generation of the mfcs. the maximum power and current densities of 755.202 mw/m2, and 5525.42 ma/m2 were achieved for 3% chitosan-coated pes (pes-3%chi) compared to 629.533 mw/m2 and 3237.79 ma/m2 for pristine pes membrane. thereafter, application of a 3% chitosan coating over the pan and pvdf membranes exhibited excessive improvement in the bioelectricity generation and wastewater treatment efficiency of the mfcs. the pan-3%chi achieved the uppermost power and current densities of 765.147 mw/m2 and 8297.46 ma/m2, which were 1.7 and 2.6 higher than the pan membrane (450.675 mw/m2 and 3216.56 ma/m2). the electricity generation of the pvdf membrane was enhanced by 5.3 times (337.134 mw/m2 and 2720.16 ma/m2) after the addition of 3% chitosan, likely due to the improvement in hydrophilicity and proton conductivity. the cod removal efficiencies of 42.41, 40.55, and 36.11% were obtained by pan-3%chi, pes-3%chi, and pvdf-3%chi membranes, respectively, which were 3.53, 4.01, and 5.53 times higher than the values obtained by their pristine unmodified samples.