Avances recientes en modelado y simulación de pilas de combustible microbianas

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cells offer promising prospects

on the renewable energy field as they make

it possible to produce electrical power and

treat the wastewater, which is used as fuel,

simultaneously. The interest for the study and

development of this technology has significantly

increased from the eighties to nowadays. Since

then many scientific efforts have been made in

order to optimize these devices by focusing on

experimental work. In contrast, the modeling and

optimization of MFCs have taken more time to

attract researchers’ attention and only recently

more works on modeling have proliferated. The

current article is aimed at looking into the state

of the modeling and simulation of MFCs owing

to their importance in the understanding and

optimization of this technology. To that end, we

have carried out a review of the most prominent

models released up to now and classified

them. Eventually, we will discuss the outcomes

obtained by the application of these models to

different MFC set-ups, whose main components

and fuel input vary from case to case and let us

gather worthy information on the performance

of this type of cells.