Voltage control of microbial fuel cells for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Microbial fuel cell for wastewater treatment technology has been obtaining more and more attention with the associated abilities of continuous electrical power supply and wastewater treatment. Integrated modeling of microbial fuel cell and pH buffer solution injection systems is an important task for investigating the connecting interrelationship and integrated control. This paper studies on the integrated modeling of microbial fuel cell and pH buffer solution injection systems and the performance improvement of microbial fuel cells by the approach of model predictive control, so as to pursue the targets of tracking a given voltage and make the microbial fuel cell system output a required constant voltage. The simulation result shows that the suitable MPC control for pH buffer solution injection design can make the microbial fuel cell system to obtain desirable output voltage response with good steady-state behavior and satisfactory dynamic property.