Lena Hahn

Mrs. Lena Hahn

Wastewater Process Engineering, CUTEC Clausthal Research Center for Environmental Technologies, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

5Years (2022-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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7 December 2022 in Microorganisms
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
DHDennis R. Haupt
Dennis R. Haupt
LLLaura Landwehr
Laura Landwehr
RSRené Schumann
René Schumann
LHLena Hahn
Lena Hahn
Mohammad IssaMohammad Issa
Mohammad Issa
MSMichael Sievers
Michael Sievers
Microbial fuel cells are a promising technology for future wastewater treatment, as it allows cleaning and power generation simultaneously. The bottleneck of microbial fuel cells is often its cathodes because they determine the power output. Gas diffusion electrodes might overcome this bottleneck due to their low production costs and high oxygen reduction rates. However, biofilm formation on the gas diffusion electrodes reduces their performance over time. In this work, a new reactor design of the microbial fuel cell using rotating gas diffusion electrodes is presented. The biofilm growth on the electrode during operation was observed and its effect on the performance of the microbial fuel cell was examined. In addition, different antifouling strategies were investigated over a period of 80 days. It was found that already after 7 days of operation a complete biofilm had grown on an untreated gas diffusion electrode. However, this does not seem to affect the performance of the cells in the beginning. Differences in the performance of the reactors with and without an antifouling strategy only become apparent from day 15 onwards. The use of UV radiation and antibacterial membranes leads to the best results with maximum power densities of approx. 200 mW m−2 while the untreated microbial fuel cell only achieves a maximum power density of approx. 20 mW m−2.