针对微生物燃料电池能量采集的最优电容理论计算方法与实验研究

微生物燃料电池(Microbial Fuel Cells,MFCs)已被认可为最具前景的可替代、可再生的清洁能源之一,但是其输出电压和电流较小,几乎难以直接驱动目前任何商用电子器件.在实际应用中,通常需要能量管理系统(PowerManagement System,PMS)来存储其输出能量,然后经变换处理后间歇式的驱动负载.在PMS中,超级电容器通常被选作为电能存储器件.由于MFC输出能量有限,如何使最多的能量转存到超级电容器中成为MFC应用领域重要的研究内容.通过分析MFC反应机理,采用目前普遍公认的MFC等效电路模型,提出了一种计算最优电容值的理论方法,选用该最优电容,能够使MFC在一个充电周期内产生的平均功率最大.基于建立的单室空气阴极MFC实验系统,进行了最优电容值检验实验.理论和实验结果验证了该方法的有效性.

Theoretical Method and Experimental Study of Determining the Optimal Capacitance for Energy Harvesting from MFCs

Microbial Fuel Cells(MFCs) are considered to be one of the most promising alternative renewable power sources.But MFC cannot drive almost all the present commercial electron devices because of its low output voltage and current.Power Management System(PMS) is designed to accumulate power from MFCs and then discharge it to drive the load intermittently.Super-capacitor is usually selected as the power storage device in PMS.As MFC provides limited power output,maximizing the power transferred to the super-capacitor is of great importance.A theoretical method of determining the optimal capacitance that can maximize the average power generation in a single charging cycle was presented based on the generally accepted equivalent circuit model of MFC.A single chamber air-cathode MFC experiment system was built and experiments were implemented.Simulation and experimental results show the validity of the proposed method.