Study of the influence of nanoscale porosity on the microbial electroactivity between expanded graphite electrodes and Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms

Abstract

Expanded graphite (EG) electrodes gather several advantages for their utilization in microbial electrochemical technologies (MET). Unfortunately, the low microbial electroactivity makes them non-practical for implementing them as electrodes. The objective of this work is to explore the enhancement of microbial electroactivity of expanded graphite (commercial PV15) through the generation of nanopores by CO2 treatment. The changes in properties were thoroughly analysed by TG, XRD, Raman, XPS, gas adsorption, SEM and AFM, as well as microbial electroactivity in the presence of Geobacter sulfurreducens. Nanopores remarkably enhance the microbially derived electrical current (60-fold increase). Given the inaccessibility of micron-sized bacteria to these nanopores, it is suggested that the electric charge exchanged by electroactive microorganisms might be greatly affected by the capability of the electrode to compensate these charges through ion adsorption. The increased microbial current density produced on activated PV15 opens the possibility of using such materials as promising electrodes in MET.