4.5 Variation of AVS with time in different circuit conditions
Figure 6 demonstrates the variation of AVS with time for the SMFC system in different circuit conditions. Three samples were prepared with different circuit conditions but the same amount of sediment to compare the effect of the circuit for AVS reduction. One MFC was designed with an open circuit, another one is used for 100 Ω external resistance and another one is without electrode or circuit (blank) condition.
It was seen that the AVS reduction was faster when SMFC was used. The open circuit and the circuit with 100 Ω were more effective to reduce the AVS than the sample without the circuit system. This figure confirms that by using the SMFC system, the AVS reduction will be faster than without using MFC for the sediment contaminated with higher AVS. This type of phenomena is mainly due to the enhanced flow of electron inside the MFCs (Rabaet et al. 2006; Zhang and Zhou 2009). The geo-environmental condition of the high AVS contaminated sediment can be improved by applying this method. The benefit of this method is that it could be used as a safe source of bioelectricity generation in the remote places and this electricity can be used for small applications such as to power the environmental monitoring sensors.