Issues of scale in microbial fuel cells and bioelectrochemical systems

Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are expected to have a significant role to play in future energy saving and generation, in the separation of ions and manufacture of bio-derived products; be they energy gasses, liquids or materials. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have received the most attention to date, but there are considerable lessons to be derived from this subset of BES, in terms of the minimisation of losses and particularly the performance of the anodic half cell of BES. While interest exists in relation to commercialization of these technologies, there are relatively few examples of increasing scale while maintaining adequate performance. The paper explores some of the issues in relation to scale-up and presents an overview of the work of the authors in this regard.