The recently developed self-stratifying membraneless microbial fuel cell (SSM-MFC) has been shown as a promising concept for urine treatment. The first prototypes employed cathodes made of activated carbon (AC) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) mixture. Here, we explored the possibility to substitute PTFE with either polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) or PlastiDip (CPD; i.e. synthetic rubber) as binder for AC-based cathode in SSM-MFC. Sintered activated carbon (SAC) was also tested due to its ease of manufacturing and the fact that no stainless steel collector is needed. Results indicate that the SSM-MFC having PTFE cathodes were the most powerful measuring 1617 μW (11 W·m-3 or 101 mW·m-2). SSM-MFC with PVA and CPD as binders were producing on average the same level of power (1226 ± 90 μW), which was 24% less than the SSM-MFC having PTFE-based cathodes. When balancing the power by the cost and environmental impact, results clearly show that PVA was the best alternative. Power wise, the SAC cathodes were shown being the less performing (≈1070 μW). Nonetheless, the lower power of SAC was balanced by its inexpensiveness. Overall results indicate that (i) PTFE is yet the best binder to employ, and (ii) SAC and PVA-based cathodes are promising alternatives that would benefit from further improvements.

中文翻译：

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用于阴极的粘结剂材料应用于自分层无膜微生物燃料电池。

最近开发的自分层无膜微生物燃料电池（SSM-MFC）已显示为尿液治疗的一个有前途的概念。第一批原型使用由活性炭（AC）和聚四氟乙烯（PTFE）混合物制成的阴极。在这里，我们探索了用聚乙烯醇（PVA）或PlastiDip（CPD；即合成橡胶）代替PTFE作为SSM-MFC中基于AC的阴极的粘合剂的可能性。由于烧结活性炭（SAC）易于制造并且不需要不锈钢集热器，因此也进行了测试。结果表明，具有PTFE阴极的SSM-MFC的功率最高，为1617μW（11 W·m-3或101 mW·m-2）。以PVA和CPD为粘合剂的SSM-MFC平均产生相同水平的功率（1226±90μW），比具有PTFE基阴极的SSM-MFC少24％。当通过成本和环境影响平衡功率时，结果清楚地表明，PVA是最佳选择。在功率方面，SAC阴极的性能较差（≈1070μW）。但是，SAC的较低功能通过其便宜性得到了平衡。总体结果表明，（i）PTFE仍是使用的最佳粘合剂，并且（ii）基于SAC和PVA的阴极是有前途的替代品，它们将从进一步的改进中受益。