Recently, terracotta has attracted interest as low-cost and biocompatible material to build separators in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). However, the influence of a non-conductive material like terracotta on electroactive microbiological communities remains substantially unexplored. This study aims at describing the microbial pools developed from two different seed inocula (bovine and swine sewage) in terracotta-based air-breathing MFC. A statistical approach on microbiological data confirmed different community enrichment in the MFCs, depending mainly on the inoculum. Terracotta separators impeded the growth of electroactive communities in contact with cathodes (biocathodes), while a thick biofilm was observed on the surface (anolyte-side) of the terracotta separator. Terracotta-free MFCs, set as control experiments, showed a well-developed biocathode, Biocathode-MFCs resulted in 4 to 6-fold higher power densities. All biofilms were analyzed by high-throughput Illumina sequencing applied to 16S rRNA gene. The results showed more abundant (3- to 5-fold) electroactive genera (mainly Geobacter, Pseudomonas, Desulfuromonas and Clostridia MBA03) in terracotta-free biocathodes. Nevertheless, terracotta separators induced only slight changes in anodic microbial communities.

近来，兵马俑作为低成本和生物相容性材料而引起人们的兴趣，以在微生物燃料电池（MFCs）中建立隔板。但是，诸如兵马俑之类的非导电材料对电活性微生物群落的影响尚待探索。这项研究的目的是描述基于兵马俑的空气呼吸MFC中两种不同种子接种物（牛和猪污水）形成的微生物库。微生物数据的统计方法证实了MFCs中不同的群落富集，这主要取决于接种物。兵马俑隔板阻碍了与阴极（生物阴极）接触的电活性群落的生长，而在兵马俑隔板的表面（阳极液侧）上观察到了厚厚的生物膜。不含赤土的MFC，设置为对照实验，显示出发达的生物阴极，Biocathode-MFCs导致功率密度提高了4到6倍。通过应用于16S rRNA基因的高通量Illumina测序分析所有生物膜。结果显示，电活性属更丰富（3至5倍）（主要是地杆菌，假单胞菌，Desulfuromonas和梭状芽胞杆菌MBA03）的无赤土生物阴极。然而，兵马俑分离器仅引起阳极微生物群落的轻微变化。