Influence of heat and autoclaved pretreatment on the effectiveness of bioelectricity production in sediment microbial fuel cell

The main aim of this study is to compare the power generation of heat and autoclaved pretreatment using sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFC). Soil samples collected from the garden were pretreated with heat (N = 28) and autoclave (N = 28) and used to construct the SMFC to operate for 10 days (G power 80%). Voltage was measured using a multimeter and current, power and power density were calculated for both groups. The power generation was found to be high in heat pre-treated soil (14 mW/m2) compared to autoclaved pretreated soil (8.01 mW/m2) due to its ability to easily form a biocathode. The independent sample T-Test was done which showed that the heat pretreated soil power generation (p = 0.001) found to be significantly higher compared with the autoclave pretreated soil. This study shows that the heat pretreated soil is able to achieve higher power generation compared to autoclave pretreated soil.