Synergistic of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and glucose oxidase enzyme as co-biocatalyst of enzymatic microbial fuel cell (EMFC) in converting sugarcane bagasse extract into electricity

The microbial fuel cell (MFC) is an ecologically friendly alternative energy source. Due to the typically limited electron transfer in MFC systems, co-biocatalysts are necessary to enhance their performance. Enzymes are used as co-biocatalysts due to their superior ability to generate energy, and the system is known as an enzymatic microbial fuel cell (EMFC). One of the substrates that may be used is bagasse waste extracted from sugarcane. Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the enzyme glucose oxidase (GOx) serve as co-biocatalysts in the breakdown of sugarcane bagasse waste in this study, which uses single-chamber EMFCs. In EMFC using sugarcane bagasse waste extract employing S. cerevisiae biocatalyst and glucose oxidase enzyme co-biocatalyst, the open circuit voltage was 0.56 V and the maximum power density was 146.65 mW m-2, an increase of 10.4 times to MFCs that solely employed only yeast biocatalyst. In addition, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction achieved by this technology is 75 %. In addition, the pH of sugarcane bagasse waste extract samples treated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast and GOx enzyme decreased from 4.6 to 4.2. This research demonstrates that adding the co-biocatalyst GOx enzyme may boost the performance of the traditional yeast MFC.