Multi-species mathematical modeling and dynamic simulation of a microbial electrolysis cell for biohydrogen production
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24054/rcta.v2i48.4391Keywords:
hydrogen, microbial electrolysis cells, methane, Coulombic efficiency, mathematical modellingAbstract
A multi-population mathematical model was developed to analyze hydrogen production in Microbial Electrolysis Cells (MECs) under continuous operation. The model, implemented in Python, integrates the dynamics of fermentative, methanogenic, and exoelectrogenic bacteria with the electrochemical phenomena of the cell, and enabled assessment of the effects of applied voltage and substrate concentration on system performance. The results from the model show that exoelectrogenic bacteria form a mature biofilm that reduces the internal resistance of the cell, achieving hydrogen flow rates of 400 mL/d at 1.0 V and a Coulombic efficiency of 60%. The findings derived from the model represent a relevant contribution toward the optimization and industrial scale-up of this technology.
Downloads
References
C. Carraro, S. Searle, and C. Baldino, ‘Waste and residue availability for advanced biofuel production in the European Union and the United Kingdom’, International Council on Clean Transportation, Working paper 2021-39, 2021.
K. Vohra, A. Vodonos, J. Schwartz, E. A. Marais, M. P. Sulprizio, and L. J. Mickley, ‘Global mortality from outdoor fine particle pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion: Results from GEOS-Chem’, Environmental Research, vol. 195, p. 110754, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754.
T. da Silva Veras, T. S. Mozer, D. da Costa Rubim Messeder dos Santos, and A. da Silva César, ‘Hydrogen: Trends, production and characterization of the main process worldwide’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 2018–2033, Jan. 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.08.219.
S. G. Nnabuife et al., ‘The prospects of hydrogen in achieving net zero emissions by 2050: A critical review’, Sustainable Chemistry for Climate Action, vol. 2, p. 100024, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.scca.2023.100024.
M. T. Ahad, M. M. H. Bhuiyan, A. N. Sakib, A. B. Corral, and Z. Siddique, ‘An Overview of Challenges for the Future of Hydrogen’, Materials, vol. 16, no. 20, Oct. 2023, doi: 10.3390/ma16206680.
B. E. Logan et al., ‘Microbial Electrolysis Cells for High Yield Hydrogen Gas Production from Organic Matter’, ACS Publications. Accessed: Oct. 27, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es801553z
H. Liu, S. Grot, and B. E. Logan, ‘Electrochemically assisted microbial production of hydrogen from acetate’, Environ Sci Technol, vol. 39, no. 11, pp. 4317–4320, Jun. 2005, doi: 10.1021/es050244p.
P. Dange et al., ‘Recent Developments in Microbial Electrolysis Cell-Based Biohydrogen Production Utilizing Wastewater as a Feedstock’, Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 16, Art. no. 16, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.3390/su13168796.
Z. Dai, E. S. Heidrich, J. Dolfing, and A. P. Jarvis, ‘Determination of the Relationship between the Energy Content of Municipal Wastewater and Its Chemical Oxygen Demand’, Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett., vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 396–400, Jul. 2019, doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.9b00253.
E. S. Heidrich, T. P. Curtis, and J. Dolfing, ‘Determination of the Internal Chemical Energy of Wastewater’, Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 827–832, Jan. 2011, doi: 10.1021/es103058w.
B. E. Logan and K. Rabaey, ‘Conversion of wastes into bioelectricity and chemicals by using microbial electrochemical technologies’, Science, vol. 337, no. 6095, pp. 686–690, Aug. 2012, doi: 10.1126/science.1217412.
E. Yang et al., ‘A review on self-sustainable microbial electrolysis cells for electro-biohydrogen production via coupling with carbon-neutral renewable energy technologies’, Bioresource Technology, vol. 320, p. 124363, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.124363.
G. Kumar et al., ‘Microbial electrochemical systems for sustainable biohydrogen production: Surveying the experiences from a start-up viewpoint’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 70, pp. 589–597, Apr. 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.107.
M. Muddasar et al., ‘Performance efficiency comparison of microbial electrolysis cells for sustainable production of biohydrogen—A comprehensive review’, International Journal of Energy Research, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 5625–5645, 2022, doi: 10.1002/er.7606.
S. Gadkari, S. Gu, and J. Sadhukhan, ‘Towards automated design of bioelectrochemical systems: A comprehensive review of mathematical models’, Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 343, no. February, pp. 303–316, 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2018.03.005.
R. P. Pinto, B. Srinivasan, A. Escapa, and B. Tartakovsky, ‘Multi-Population Model of a Microbial Electrolysis Cell’, Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 45, no. 11, pp. 5039–5046, Jun. 2011, doi: 10.1021/es104268g.
S. Gadkari, M. Shemfe, and J. Sadhukhan, ‘Microbial fuel cells: A fast converging dynamic model for assessing system performance based on bioanode kinetics’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 44, no. 29, pp. 15377–15386, Jun. 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.04.065.
X.-C. Zhang and A. Halme, ‘Modelling of a microbial fuel cell process’, Biotechnol Lett, vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 809–814, Aug. 1995, doi: 10.1007/BF00129009.
R. P. Pinto, B. Srinivasan, M.-F. Manuel, and B. Tartakovsky, ‘A two-population bio-electrochemical model of a microbial fuel cell’, Bioresource Technology, vol. 101, no. 14, pp. 5256–5265, Jul. 2010, doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2010.01.122.
M. Kazemi, D. Biria, and H. Rismani-Yazdi, ‘Modelling bio-electrosynthesis in a reverse microbial fuel cell to produce acetate from CO2 and H2O’, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., vol. 17, no. 19, pp. 12561–12574, 2015, doi: 10.1039/c5cp00904a.
Q. Ping, C. Zhang, X. Chen, B. Zhang, Z. Huang, and Z. He, ‘Mathematical Model of Dynamic Behavior of Microbial Desalination Cells for Simultaneous Wastewater Treatment and Water Desalination’, Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 48, no. 21, pp. 13010–13019, Nov. 2014, doi: 10.1021/es504089x.
S. Yao, Y.-L. He, B.-Y. Song, and X.-Y. Li, ‘A two-dimensional, two-phase mass transport model for microbial fuel cells’, Electrochimica Acta, vol. 212, pp. 201–211, Sep. 2016, doi: 10.1016/j.electacta.2016.06.167.
C. Picioreanu, M. C. M. van Loosdrecht, T. P. Curtis, and K. Scott, ‘Model based evaluation of the effect of pH and electrode geometry on microbial fuel cell performance’, Bioelectrochemistry, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 8–24, Apr. 2010, doi: 10.1016/j.bioelechem.2009.04.009.
Y. Azwar, A. K. Abdul-Wahab, and M. A. Hussain, ‘Optimal Production of Biohydrogen Gas via Microbial Electrolysis Cells (MEC) in a Controlled Batch Reactor System’.
A. M. Yahya, M. A. Hussain, and A. K. Abdul Wahab, ‘Modeling, optimization, and control of microbial electrolysis cells in a fed-batch reactor for production of renewable biohydrogen gas’, International Journal of Energy Research, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 557–572, 2015, doi: 10.1002/er.3273.
B. Sirinutsomboon, ‘Modeling of a membraneless single-chamber microbial fuel cell with molasses as an energy source’, Int. J. Energy Environ. Eng., vol. 5, no. 2–3, pp. 1–9, 2014, doi: 10.1007/s40095-014-0093-5.
Y. Zeng, Y. F. Choo, B.-H. Kim, and P. Wu, ‘Modelling and simulation of two-chamber microbial fuel cell’, Journal of Power Sources, vol. 195, no. 1, pp. 79–89, Jan. 2010, doi: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2009.06.101.
V. B. Oliveira, M. Simões, L. F. Melo, and A. M. F. R. Pinto, ‘A 1D mathematical model for a microbial fuel cell’, Energy, vol. 61, pp. 463–471, Nov. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.08.055.
M. N. Ikhmal Salehmin et al., ‘Modeling biohydrogen production from microbial electrolysis cells in the machine learning era: a review’, Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, vol. 85, p. 104819, Jan. 2026, doi: 10.1016/j.seta.2026.104819.
M. A. Mohd Asrul, M. F. Atan, H. Abdul Halim Yun, and J. C. H. Lai, ‘Mathematical model of biohydrogen production in microbial electrolysis cell: A review’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 46, no. 75, pp. 37174–37191, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.09.021.
A. Garg, V. Vijayaraghavan, S. S. Mahapatra, K. Tai, and C. H. Wong, ‘Performance evaluation of microbial fuel cell by artificial intelligence methods’, Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 41, no. 4, Part 1, pp. 1389–1399, Mar. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.eswa.2013.08.038.
E. M. Conners, K. Rengasamy, and A. Bose, ‘Electroactive biofilms: how microbial electron transfer enables bioelectrochemical applications’, J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol., vol. 49, no. 4, p. kuac012, Jul. 2022, doi: 10.1093/jimb/kuac012.
C. Montoya-Vallejo, J. O. Gil Posada, and J. C. Quintero-Díaz, ‘Enhancement of Electricity Production in Microbial Fuel Cells Using a Biosurfactant-Producing Co-Culture’, Molecules, vol. 28, no. 23, Art. no. 23, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.3390/molecules28237833.
E. Marsili, D. B. Baron, I. D. Shikhare, D. Coursolle, J. A. Gralnick, and D. R. Bond, ‘Shewanella secretes flavins that mediate extracellular electron transfer’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 105, no. 10, pp. 3968–3973, Mar. 2008, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0710525105.
A. Kato Marcus, C. I. Torres, and B. E. Rittmann, ‘Conduction-based modeling of the biofilm anode of a microbial fuel cell’, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, vol. 98, no. 6, pp. 1171–1182, 2007, doi: 10.1002/bit.21533.
A. Saltelli, M. Ratto, S. Tarantola, and F. Campolongo, ‘Sensitivity Analysis for Chemical Models’, Chem. Rev., vol. 105, no. 7, pp. 2811–2828, Jul. 2005, doi: 10.1021/cr040659d.
A. Varma, M. Morbidelli, and H. Wu, Parametric sensitivity in chemical systems, vol. 1. Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 1999. Accessed: Mar. 22, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://www.academia.edu/download/118001995/248350749.pdf
W. Cai et al., ‘Biocathodic Methanogenic Community in an Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Microbial Electrolysis System for Enhancement of Methane Production from Waste Sludge’, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., vol. 4, no. 9, pp. 4913–4921, Sep. 2016, doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b01221.
J. C. Quintero-Díaz and J. O. Gil-Posada, ‘Batch and semi-continuous treatment of cassava wastewater using microbial fuel cells and metataxonomic analysis’, Bioprocess Biosyst Eng, vol. 47, no. 7, pp. 1057–1070, Jul. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s00449-024-03025-0.
S. J. Satinover, M. Rodriguez, M. F. Campa, T. C. Hazen, and A. P. Borole, ‘Performance and community structure dynamics of microbial electrolysis cells operated on multiple complex feedstocks’, Biotechnol Biofuels, vol. 13, no. 1, p. 169, Oct. 2020, doi: 10.1186/s13068-020-01803-y.
P. Batlle-Vilanova et al., ‘Assessment of biotic and abiotic graphite cathodes for hydrogen production in microbial electrolysis cells’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 1297–1305, Jan. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2013.11.017.
L. Lu, D. Xing, N. Ren, and B. E. Logan, ‘Syntrophic interactions drive the hydrogen production from glucose at low temperature in microbial electrolysis cells’, Bioresource Technology, vol. 124, pp. 68–76, Nov. 2012, doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2012.08.040.
L. Cristiani et al., ‘Enhancing energy efficiency and H2 production in lab-scale dual chamber microbial electrolysis cells: A focus on catholyte composition and voltage losses’, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 111782, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.jece.2023.111782.
T. H. J. A. Sleutels, S. D. Molenaar, A. T. Heijne, and C. J. N. Buisman, ‘Low Substrate Loading Limits Methanogenesis and Leads to High Coulombic Efficiency in Bioelectrochemical Systems’, Microorganisms, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 2016, doi: 10.3390/microorganisms4010007.
I. Ivanov, L. Ren, M. Siegert, and B. E. Logan, ‘A quantitative method to evaluate microbial electrolysis cell effectiveness for energy recovery and wastewater treatment’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 38, no. 30, pp. 13135–13142, Oct. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2013.07.123.
L. Zhang, Y. Bai, J. Sang, J. Dong, X. Wu, and Q. Ban, ‘Enhanced Biohydrogen Production through Dark Fermentation by Humic Acid: Insights into Microbial Composition and Functional Genes’, J Microbiol Biotechnol, vol. 35, p. e2412071, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.4014/jmb.2412.12071.
R. Abdallah et al., ‘Dark fermentative hydrogen production by anaerobic sludge growing on glucose and ammonium resulting from nitrate electroreduction’, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 41, no. 12, pp. 5445–5455, Apr. 2016, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.02.030.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Juan Carlos Quintero Díaz, Diego Fernando Mendoza Muñoz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
