Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely exploited to improve anodic performance, but information is needed on their long-term stability for improvement. Herein, we prepared a novel CNTs-modified graphite felt (CNTs-GF) by a simple and scalable process and evaluated its long-term performance using anaerobic sludge as inoculum. the MFC with CNTs-GF yielded a sustained enhancement of power output, increasing from 1.93 ± 0.09 W m⁻² after 1 month to 2.10 ± 0.05 W m⁻² after 3 months and reaching 2.00 ± 0.10 W m⁻² after 13 month, indicating the enhancement in electricity generation by the CNTs was not declined over one year. However, the bare GF showed a declining tendency of performance during 13 months. The long-term enhancement can be explained by the facts that the CNTs-GF was beneficial to electrochemically active biofilms (EABs) growth and interacted better with EABs and increased the extracellular electron transfer. Community analysis showed an increase in Geobacter in response to CNTs modification. These results demonstrated that CNTs modification could sustain a superior long-term enhancement in MFC performance.

碳纳米管（CNTs）已被广泛用于改善阳极性能，但是需要有关其长期稳定性的信息以进行改进。在这里，我们通过简单且可扩展的方法制备了一种新型的CNTs改性石墨毡（CNTs-GF），并使用厌氧污泥作为接种物评估了其长期性能。具有CNTs-GF的MFC产生了持续的功率输出，从1个月后的1.93±0.09 W m ^-2增加到3个月后的2.10±0.05 W m ^-2，达到2.00±0.10 W m ^-213个月后，表明碳纳米管发电量的增加在一年内没有下降。但是，裸露的GF在13个月内表现出下降的趋势。长期增强可以用以下事实解释：CNTs-GF对电化学活性生物膜（EABs）的生长是有益的，并且与EABs相互作用更好，并增加了细胞外电子转移。社区分析显示，响应于CNT的修饰，Geobacter的增加。这些结果表明，CNT改性可以使MFC性能长期保持优异的提高。