Green Electricity from Wetland Plants – Derived Microbial Fuel Cell as an Electricity Source for Indonesia’s Coastal Region

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to generate a new alternative technology for the production of electricity which is suitable to be applied, in order to overcome the problem of the electrical energy crisis in Indonesia’s Coastal Region (3T).  This technology is known as plant-microbial fuel cells (P-MFC). The working principle of this technology is the conversion of rhizodepositee (a group of simple carbohydrates and short-chain organic acids located in the root zone of plants in the wetlands) by rhizosphere microorganisms community into electricity through a fuel cell system. Three kinds of wetland plants were used in this study, which are Cyperus esculentus, Oryza sativa, Ipomoea reptans. They were assembled as 6 buckets for each plant, and C. esculentus showed a higher result of electrical power measurement compared to O. sativa and I. reptans (1.4075 mW; 1.2474 mW; 1.0920 mW). The result showed that all plants could generate electricity which shown by the turned on lamp in the system. The PMFC system has a potential and could be applied in household scale. In the future, this system could be develope commercially using ‘coastal tourism based on green electricity’ concept.