Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547

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Acta Astronautica
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

Electricity generation directly using human feces wastewater for life

support system
Du Fangzhou, Li Zhenglong, Yang Shaoqiang, Xie Beizhen, Liu Hong 
Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Life Support Technology, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University,
Beijing 100191, China

a r t i c l e in fo abstract

Article history: Wastewater reuse and power regeneration are key issues in the research of
Received 30 July 2009 bioregeneration life support system (BLSS). Microbial fuel cell (MFC) can generate
Received in revised form electricity during the process of wastewater treatment, which might be promising to
15 December 2009
solve the two problems simultaneously. We used human feces wastewater containing
Accepted 18 December 2009
abundant organic compounds as the substrate of MFC to generate electricity, and the
Available online 18 February 2010
factors concerning electricity generation capacity were investigated. The removal
Keywords: efficiency of total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD), Soluble chemical oxygen demand
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) (SCOD) and NH4þ reached 71%, 88% and 44%, respectively with two-chamber MFC when
Life support system
it was fed with the actual human feces wastewater and operated for 190 h. And the
Human feces wastewater
maximum power density reached 70.8 mW/m2, which implicated that MFC technology
Electricity generation capacity
Wastewater treatment was feasible and appropriate for treating human feces wastewater. In order to improve
the power generation of MFC further, human feces wastewater were fermented before
poured into MFC, and the result showed that fermentation pretreatment could improve
the MFC output obviously. The maximum power density of MFC fed with pretreated
human feces wastewater was 22 mW/m2, which was 47% higher than that of the control
without pretreatment (15 mW/m2). Furthermore, the structure of MFC was studied and
it was found that both enlarging the area of electrodes and shortening the distance
between electrodes could increase the electricity generation capacity. Finally, an
automatic system, controlled by time switches and electromagnetic valves, was
established to process one person’s feces wastewater (1 L/d) while generating
electricity. The main parts of this system comprised a pretreatment device and 3 one-
chamber air-cathode MFCs. The total power could reach 787.1 mW and power density
could reach the maximum of about 240 mW/m2.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction activity, such as human feces wastewater, urine, gray water

In manned space activity, the life support system plays
an important role to allow astronauts to survive in outer
space. Water reuse and power supply are critical tech-
nologies of the system. There are many water resources
which can be recovered and reused in manned space
 Corresponding author. Tel./fax: + 86 10 82339837.
E-mail address: LH64@buaa.edu.cn (H. Liu).
and so on. These kinds of wastewater can be purified by the
water cycle regeneration system and then reused as potable
water or domestic water [1]. Although the treatment
technology of human feces wastewater and urine has made
a certain achievement, the process is complicated, not
stable and with high energy consumption.
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is an emerging technology in
the field of environmental protection and power genera-
tion. It makes use of microbial metabolization under
anaerobic condition to convert the chemical energy

0094-5765/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.12.013
1538 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547

contained in the organics to electricity, so that waste-

water disposal and power generation take place simulta-
neously in normal condition. Theoretically, almost all
the substrates that can be metabolized by microorgan-
isms are able to act as the fuel of MFC [2], such as
simple molecules, urban sewage, food industry waste-
water and so on. Moreover, it has been reported that
swine wastewater can feed MFC [3]. Therefore, MFC has
special features and advantages suitable for life support
system.
Human feces wastewater contains abundant organics
[4], which can be degraded to small organic molecules
applicable for MFC. Disposing human feces via MFC can
purify water quality and recover the power in them at the
same time. This will be a great of help for power and
Fig. 1. Two-chamber MFC schematic diagram.
water supply in life support system. In this paper, we
focused on the feasibility and improvement of MFC fed by
human feces, and then we constructed an automatic
human feces MFC system to recover energy and dispose
the feces produced by one astronaut in one day.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Activated sludge

The inoculating sludge was obtained from the anaero-

bic digester of sewage treatment plant, and its MLSS and
MLVSS were 27 g/L and 14 g/L, respectively. The pH value
Fig. 2. One-chamber MFC with two MEAs (1-Fender; 2-MEA).
was around 7.

2.3.2. One-chamber MFC with two membrane electrode

2.2. Experimental wastewater and culture medium
The glucose culture medium, mineral solution and
vitamin solution were prepared as Liu and Lovley had
reported [5,6].
Phosphate buffer contained 4.22 g/L NaH2PO4  2H2O
and 2.75 g/L Na2HPO4  12H2O.
Human feces wastewater were obtained from the
septic tank. Firstly, we filtered the human feces waste-
water to remove the insoluble matter, and then diluted
the solution according to the requirement of experiment.
>Artificial human feces wastewater was composed of
8 g starch, 2.5 g casein, 5 g oleic acid, 4.97 g NaH2-
PO4  2H2O, 2.75 g Na2HPO4  12H2O, 0.31 g NH4Cl, 0.13 g
KCl, per liter [7]. Add 12.5 mL mineral solution and
vitamin solution per liter.
2.3. MFCs
2.3.1. Two-chamber MFC
As shown in Fig. 1, carbon paper (6 cm  8 cm) served
as the anode, and carbon paper (4 cm  5 cm) with 40%
platinum served as the cathode. The volume of anode and
cathode chamber were 1 L each (10 cm  10 cm  10 cm),
and they were separated by PEM (6 cm  6 cm, Nafion
117). During the experiment, the cathode-chamber was
aerated by air to keep dissolved oxygen (DO) at a high
level.
assemblies (MEAs)
The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) is a kind of
electrode, whose anode, PEM and cathode are pressed
together to make the distance between anode and
cathode as small as possible. Two MEAs covered both
sides of the anode-chamber and acted as electrodes in the
one-chamber MFC (Fig. 2). And baffle plates were fixes in
the chamber to make the mass in the chamber mix fully
during the continuous-flow operation. The details of this
MFC were described in Table 1.
2.3.3. One-chamber MFC with one MEA
It was described in Table 1 and Fig. 3.
2.3.4. Adjustable two-chamber MFC
Two column chambers with actual volume of 628 mL
were separated by PEM (4.9 cm2). The length of the bridge
connecting them was adjustable so that the distance
between anode and cathode could vary from 4 to 24 cm.
Carbon paper with 40% platinum served as the cathode
(4 cm  5 cm) and carbon paper served as the anode
(9 cm  6 cm) (Fig. 4).
2.4. Fermentation pretreatment device
The column reactor was made of PMMA, and its actual
volume was 2.5 L. There was a blender system for stirring
(Fig. 5).
 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547 1539

2.5. Experimental
2.5.1. Feasibility of human feces MFC
A two-chamber MFC was inoculated with anaerobic
sludge (terminal concentration was 5 g/L), the anode and
cathode chamber were filled with glucose culture med-
ium and phosphate buffer, respectively, during the startup
phase. The data acquisition system (Personal Measure-
ment Device, PMD-1608FS, USB-1608FS, US) was used to
test the output voltage of the MFC every one minute and
record those data. We operated the MFC in batch mode
and refreshed the anolyte after the output voltage
decreased obviously. After the MFC worked steadily, 10
fold diluted human feces wastewater took the place of the
Table 1
Structure and running parameters of MFC.
glucose culture medium in the anode chamber. The water
quality and pH were tested during the MFC was running.
The batch mode was also chosen in this phase and the
polarization curve of the MFC was determined when the
MFC came to a stable performance.
2.5.2. Startup of other kinds of MFCs
All MFCs, including one-chamber MFC with one or two
MEAs and adjustable two-chamber MFC, were started up
in the same way as just mentioned above.
2.5.3. Fermentation pretreatment
A cylindrical reactor as shown in Fig. 5 was designed
for the fermentation pretreatment of artificial human
feces wastewater. Anaerobic sludge was the inocula and
its terminal concentration was maintained at 5 g/L. The
artificial human feces wastewater were treated in this

One-chamber One-chamber
MFC with MFC with
two MEAs one MEA

Actual volume (mL) 1500 425

Total electrode area (cm2) 320 25
Surface-to-volume ratios of 21.3 5.6
anode (m2/m3)
Cathode Carbon paper with 40% platinum
Membrane PEM (Nafion 117), PEM (Nafion
320 cm2 117), 25 cm2

Fig. 5. Fermentation pretreatment device [8]. (1—outlet, 2—sampling

Fig. 3. One-chamber MFC with one MEA. Port, 3—blender, 4—inlet)

Data Acquisition System

Resistor

pH &
Temperature
PEM Detecor

Cathode Anode

Fig. 4. Adjustable two-chamber MFC.

1540 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547
reactor and then injected into the experimental MFC. The
best HRT of pretreatment was determined according to
the change of pH value in the device.
Two adjustable two-chamber MFCs (the electrode
distance was fixed at 4 cm), respectively, acted as
experimental and control MFC in this part. The pretreated
artificial human feces wastewater served as the experi-
mental anolyte and artificial human feces wastewater
without pretreatment served as the control anolyte. All
the other parameters of the two MFCs were same. The
output voltage, internal resistance and polarization curve
of the MFCs were monitored.
2.5.4. Factors influencing MFC output
(1) Electrode area: One-chamber MFCs with one or two
MEAs, whose electrode areas were different, were oper-
ated in the same condition to investigate the effect of
electrode area on electricity generation capacity.
(2) Distance between electrodes: The adjustable two-
chamber MFC was employed in this part. The performance
and internal resistance of MFC with different electrode
distance were tested.
2.5.5. Automatic human feces wastewater MFC system
Based on the above research, an automatic human
feces wastewater MFC system was designed and con-
structed for the purpose of disposing feces produced by
one person one day (1 L) and generating electricity
simultaneously. The whole system was composed of
fermentation pretreatment device, MFC stack with three
air-cathode MFCs, time switches, flow controllers and
peristaltic pumps. We tested the output voltage, polariza-
tion curve and internal resistance of the MFCs to estimate
the performance of the system.
2.6. Analysis and calculation
The concentration of NH4þ , F  and SO2
4 was measured
by Ion Chromatography (792 Basic IC, Metrohm). And
we also use salicylate-hypochlorous acid method for
NH4 + –N measurement to approve the result of the ion
chromatography.
Coulombic efficiency Ec was calculated by formula (1).
Cp
Ec ¼  100%
CTi
In formula (1), Cp and CTi (coulomb) represented actual
and theoretical electric quantity, respectively. Cp was
worked out by integrating the total current over time
according to formula (2).
Z ti
Ui
Cp ¼ dt ð2Þ
to R
And CTi was calculated from formula (3), where F (C/mol
electron) is the Faraday constant.
Fbi Si V
CTi ¼
Mi
bi is the theoretical mole number of electrons generated
by one molar substrate (bi of glucose is 24 and bi of
wastewater is 4). Si (g/L) is the substrate concentration. V
(L) is the volume of reaction system. Mi (g/mol) is the
molar mass of substrate, which is 32 g/mol when waste-
water acts as the substrate [9,10].
3. Results and discussion
3.1. The feasibility of human feces MFC
The steady performance of MFC with glucose indicated
that the anode biofilm had formed successfully. Then we
used human feces wastewater to take the place of glucose
culture medium. And the output voltages with 1000O
external resistance was tested (Fig. 6a). The peak output
voltage could reach 548 mV. And a single electricity
generation cycle could be divided into 3 phases: rising
phase, stable phase and decline phase, which was similar
to many other kinds of MFCs [11].
Different external resistances were connected into the
MFC circuit and the polarization curve was tested (Fig. 6b).
When the current density came to 208.6 mA/m2 (300O
external resistance), the power density reached the highest
point, 70.8 mW/m2, which meant the internal resistance of
MFC was about 300O.
The wastewater purification efficiency of the two-
chamber MFC with human feces wastewater is shown in
Fig. 7a. After 190 h operation, the removal efficiency of
TCOD was 71%. This low COD removal rate may be due
to the complex human feces wastewater composition,
of which the cellulose, fat, protein and other
macromolecules are the dominant parts. They cannot be
metabolized easily by the microorganisms in the anode-
chamber.
The concentration of different ions which are consid-
ered as pollutant changed much more complexly (Fig. 7b).
The removal efficiency of NH4þ –N was 44%, from 51.8 to
28.9 mg/L. F  concentration decreased from 49 to 8 mg/L,
corresponding 84% removal. After the treatment of MFC,
the F content of the human feces wastewater had met the
integrated wastewater discharge standard of China. The
microbes in the anode chamber could make use of those
ions by the way of absorbing the ions to their bodies and
converting the ions to insoluble forms to fix them in the
cells. This might be the mechanism of the removal of
these pollutant ions.
ð1Þ
In a single cycle, the pH in anode-chamber decreased
at first and then went back. H + was consumed by O2 to
form water in the cathode-chamber, which drove H + to
move from anode-chamber to cathode-chamber to keep
electroneutrality. However, other cations could pass
through the PEM, too. And the speed of H + transfer was
lower than other cations such as K + , Na + and so on since
the concentration of H + was lower than them. This
process made the H + accumulate in the anode-chamber
[12]. In addition, at the beginning of MFC operation many
organics was degraded to acids, and the speed of the
ð3Þ consumption of them was not as high as they were
produced, causing the pH value decreasing. While in a
long time operation, H + was finally transferred to
cathode-chamber and the production speed became lower
so that the pH value increased.
 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547 1541

0.60

0.55

0.50

0.45
Voltage (V)

0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time (h)

80 0.7
Power
70 Density 0.6
Voltage
Power Density (mV/m2)

60 0.5

Voltage (V)
50 0.4

40 0.3

30 0.2

20 0.1

10 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (h)

Fig. 6. Performance of two-chamber MFC: (A) The output voltage change with time using human feces wastewater as anolyte in one cycle and (B) The
polarization curve of human feces wastewater feeding MFC.

Although the two-chamber MFC could generate power
from human feces wastewater, aeration to catholyte
which caused extra energy consumption was necessary
to increase the dissolved oxygen in long time operation
for a stable output. Therefore, the one chamber air-
cathode MFC is more promising, especially for space use.
The different performances of one-chamber MFC with
glucose culture medium (1124 mg/L) and human feces
wastewater (10-time diluted) are shown in Fig. 8. The
output voltage deteriorated obviously after human
feces wastewater substituted for glucose—from 653 to
341 mV as the peak point. The maximum power density
decreased from 133 to 8.5 mV/m2 and the internal
resistance changed from 100 to 480O. In addition, the
stable phases of each cycle with human feces wastewater
shrank a lot compared to glucose-fed MFC. This
depravation may be also due to the complex com-
position of human feces wastewater. The change of
anolyte and biochemical reaction resistance resulted in
the alteration of internal resistance, and finally affected
the performance of MFC.
What’s more, the composition of human feces waste-
water is so complex and inconstant that the MFC output
would change in different cycles, which makes the target
of using it as substrate much harder. Consequently,
improvement should be enforced to overcome this defect
and enhance power generation capacity.
3.2. Fermentation pretreatment
According to the composition of human feces waste-
water and the preference of exoelectrogens, we added the
fermentation pretreatment process, in which those
1542 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547

900 450
TCOD
400
800 SCOD

350
700
300

SCOD (mg/L)
TCOD (mg/L)

600 250

500 200

150
400
100
300
50

200 0
0 50 100 150 200
Time (h)

100 7.15
90
7.10
80
Concentration (mg/L)

+
70 NH 4 - N 7.05
2-
SO 4
60 7.00
-

pH
F
50 pH 6.95
40
6.90
30
20 6.85
10
6.80
0
0 50 100 150 200
Time (h)

Fig. 7. Water quality purifying efficiency of MFC: (A) TCOD and SCOD decreased with the operation of MFC obviously and (B) pH value of anolyte
decreased at first and then increased. The concentration of ions changed complicatedly, but they tend to decrease.

macromolecules in human feces wastewater could be
degraded to small molecular organic acids. And all the
distinct compositions were converted to few kinds of
substrates so that the composition of pretreated waste-
water will be much more stable, which also made the
exoelectrogens adapt to new substrates much easier and
faster.
We have detected the variation of pH in the fermenta-
tion reactor and found that the pH value reached its
lowest level when the human feces wastewater was
treated for 5 h, corresponding with the most organic acid
amount. Any longer or shorter HRT would lead higher pH,
so that we chose 5 h as the best HRT.
In the startup phase with glucose, the maximum
output voltage of experimental MFC was about 250 mV
and the peak power density was about 31 mW/m2. And
those values of control one were 290 mV and 43 mW/m2,
respectively (Phase 1 in Fig. 9). After the anolyte had been
changed to human feces wastewater with or without
pretreatment, both the experimental and control MFCs
decreased their output (Phase 2 in Fig. 9). The
experimental MFC output decreased to 210 mV and
22 mW/m2. While the output voltage of the control one
changed much more than that of the experimental one, it
declined to 180 mV and 15 mW/m2. The results suggest
that the pretreated human feces wastewater is much
easier for exoelectrogens to use directly so that the
performance of experimental MFC was superior to the
control one. The polarization curves of the two MFCs with
different human feces wastewater are shown in Fig. 10.
The internal resistance of experimental and control one
are 2000 and 3000O, respectively. The dominant contents
 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547 1543

Start-up phase 1st cycle with 2nd cycle with

0.7
with glucose human feces human feces
wastewater wastewater
0.6

Output voltage (V) 0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (h)

Fig. 8. Electricity generated with glucose or human feces wastewater. In the start-up phase, glucose was used as substrate, and after the anode film had
formed human feces wastewater took the place causing the output voltage to decrease.

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

0.30

0.25
Output Voltage (V)

0.20
Control
Experiment
0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Time (h)

Fig. 9. Pretreatment effect on MFC performance with different substrates (Phase 1: glucose with sludge in anode chamber. Phase 2: artificial human feces
wastewater with sludge in anode chamber. Phase 3: artificial human feces wastewater without sludge in anode chamber.)

of experimental MFC anolyte are small organic acids, the
electrical conductivity of which is much higher than that
of the macromolecular organics contained in control MFC
anolyte, and higher electrical conductivity can lead to
smaller internal resistance [13]. Moreover, the easy
utilization of the pretreated human feces wastewater by
exoelectrogens could reduce the biochemical reaction
resistance. To sum up, the results above have indicated
that the advantage of fermentation pretreatment is quite
obvious.
While, the coulombic efficiency of experimental and
control MFC was 6.2% and 3.4%, which was much smaller
than that of the glucose MFC (40–55%) [5]. It might be due
to the complicated reactions happened during the whole
process, including the degradation and electricity genera-
tion. Most of the electrons in the reactions were
consumed by intermediate metabolites rather than the
electrode.
Subsequently, we removed the suspended sludge in
the anode chamber of these two MFCs and slightly
1544 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547

16 Power 0.6
density
14 Voltage
0.5
Power Density (mW/m2) 12
0.4
10

Voltage (V)
0.3
8

6 0.2

4 0.1

2
0.0
0
20 40 60 80 100
Current Density (mA /m2)

22 Power 0.5
20 density
Voltage
18
0.4
Power Density (mW/m2)

16

14

Voltage (V)
0.3
12

10 0.2

8
0.1
6

4
0.0
2

20 40 60 80 100 120 140

2)
Current Density (mA /m

Fig. 10. Polarization curves of control (A) and experimental MFCs (B).

increased the organic concentration of the influent. The
output voltage of experiment increased from 190 to
260 mV. On the contrary, the control decreased from
160 to 70 mV (Phase 3 in Fig. 9). The internal resistance of
experiment decreased by about 500O while that of
control increased by about 2500O. The sludge in the
anode-chamber contained not only exoelectrogens but
also fermentation microorganisms which could degrade
macromolecular organics. For the experiment MFC, no
sludge meant fewer competitors and the fuel was still
sufficient. While without those fermentation microorgan-
isms, the control one could not work efficiently because of
the low concentration of suitable fuel and the low
electrical conductivity.
3.3. MFC structure modification
(1) The one-chamber MFCs with two or one MEA (Figs. 2
and 3 and Table 1) served in this part. The influence of
 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547 1545

3.0 MFC with 2 MEAs 3.0

MFC with 1 MEA

2.5 2.5

Power density (W/m3)

2.0 2.0
Power (mW)

1.5 1.5

1.0 1.0

0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0

Fig. 11. Power generation of MFC with different electrode area. The left and right parts of this figure are the comparison of power and power density of
MFCs with different electrode area, respectively.

Table 2 (2) The internal resistance of MFC changed with the

Effect of distance between anode and cathode. distance between anode and cathode (Table 2). The
smaller the distance the larger power density the MFC
Distance (cm) Intermal resisance (X) Power density(mW/m2)
would have and smaller the internal resistance. The
24 2000 35 distance influences directly the mass-transfer
4 300 251 resistance, which is a dominant factor of the internal
resistance of MFC. Shortening distance leads to
smaller internal resistance and then the output will
be improved.

3.4. Automatic human feces wastewater MFC system

Based on the above achievement, we constructed an

Fig. 12. One-chamber air-cathode MFC: (1—anode chamber, 2—anode,
3—resistor, 4—cathode).
different electrodes areas on power generation is
shown in Fig. 11. Enlarging the total electrodes area
and surface-to-volume ratios of anode could increase
the maximum power and volume power density,
respectively. As all the reactions happen on the
surface of electrodes, larger area of electrodes means
more opportunities for molecules to participate in the
reaction. However, once the electrode area comes to a
saturated value, the power will not increase with it, at
which time the electrode area is not the bottle neck
any more [14]. As the cost of electrodes is one of the
main reasons making the MFC expensive, we should
find a balance point between the high power
generation and low cost.
automatic human feces wastewater MFC system. The one-
chamber air-cathode MFC as shown in Fig. 12 was
configured. Carbon fiber served as anode and 36 cm2
carbon paper coated with Pt (0.5 mg/cm2) served as
cathode. The actual anode chamber volume was
120 cm3. The MFC was constructed without PEM.
The purpose of this system was to dispose the feces
produced by one astronaut one day (1 L) and generate
electricity simultaneously. The main two parts of the
whole system (Fig. 13) were a fermentation pretreatment
device and an MFC stack with 3 absolute MFCs. We used
time switches, flow controllers and peristaltic pumps to
achieve the automatic operation. Human feces
wastewater was stored in the inlet tank and then
250 mL of them went to the pretreatment device. The
pretreatment HRT was 5 h. After standing for another 1 h
to let the sludge sediment to the bottom, the pretreated
human feces wastewater went to the storage tank and
circulated in the MFCs and storage tank for 6 h. After all
these process, one cycle is over and the later 250 mL
wastewater came. There were 4 cycles in a single day in
all so that 1 L human feces wastewater could be disposed.
The performance of MFC stack in stable phase is shown
in Fig. 14. The output voltage could stay stable for a long
1546 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547

Fig. 13. Schematic diagram of automatic human feces wastewater MFC system.

0.16
No.1 MFC
No.2 MFC
0.14 No.3 MFC

0.12
Voltage (V)

0.10

0.08

0.06

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75
Time (h)

Fig. 14. Voltage generated by MFCs in the system.

time. And the power densities were 56.02, 78.24, and
84.38 mW/m2 for each MFC. Then we changed the actual
cathode area and found that the optimal power density
could be obtained when the cathode area was 12 cm2,
while the output voltage almost kept invariant. The
maximum power density was 217 mW/m2, which
increased by more than 150%.
The performance of No.3 MFC was best so we tested
its polarization curve. When the current was 2.25 mA and
the cathode area was 12 cm2, it had the highest power
density  240 mW/m2. And the internal resistance was
about 66O.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, we demonstrated the feasibility of
human feces wastewater MFC, and tried some methods
to improve the electricity generation capacity of human
feces wastewater MFC. The conclusions as follows were
obtained:
(1) Human feces wastewater can act as the substrate of
the MFC, and its quality can be purified in a qualified
sense. The TCOD removal can reach 71%.
 F. Du et al. / Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 1537–1547
(2) Compared with glucose MFC, human feces waste-
water MFC has lower electricity generation efficiency
and its performance is not stable.
(3) Fermentation pretreatment, enlarging electrodes’ area
and shortening the distance between electrodes can
improve the MFC performance obviously.
(4) An automatic human feces MFC system was con-
structed successfully. It can meet the design require-
ment of disposing feces produced by one astronaut
one day (1 L). The total power could reach 787.1 mW.
Shrinking the actual cathode area can increase the
power density and the voltage almost kept invariant.
When the cathode area was 12 cm2, the highest power
density (240 mW/m2) of the best MFC was obtained
and the internal resistance was 66O.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Ministry of Science
and Technology of China Grant (2006DFB81140).
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