• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.357-362
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• 2010

Electricity can be directly generated from organic matter even wastewaters using a microbial fuel cell. To achieve high power in MFCs, finding factors decreasing activation and Ohmic losses is very important. In this study we determined activation loss at the anode and cathode and Ohmic loss using the current interruption technique in a H-type MFC. Activation loss at the cathode was four times higher that that of anode activation loss even if pt-coated carbon (0.5 $mg/cm^2$;10%Pt) was used as the cathode. Ohmic loss determined using current interruption technique (1146 ${\Omega}$) was almost same as the internal resistance (1167 ${\Omega}$) measured using AC impedance. The sum of activation losses at the anode and cathode was the same as the value of activation loss of the cell.