**10. MFC Commercialization**

MFC is a well-established and contemplated technology and provides various functional benefits compared to the technologies used to generate energy from organic chemicals [162,163]. It has been exhibited that any compound, which can be used by microorganisms, transformed into electricity using microorganisms [164]. MFCs offer many alluring attractions, e.g., (a) direct conversion of chemical energy to electricity which prompts high transformation effectiveness; (b) the fuel to electricity transformation by MFCs is not constrained by the Carnot cycle since it does not include the change of energy into heat, rather straightforwardly into electricity and, hypothetically it is possible to accomplish higher transformation proficiency (70%)" (c) MFC operate at ambient temperature, due to involvement of microbes as a catalyst; (d) MFCs generate sustainable electricity; and (e) calm and safe execution of performance [165] and (f) no off-gas treatment is necessary because MFC usually generate carbon dioxide which has no useful content of energy [166]. It is hypothesized that MFCs can generate about half the power needed for a conventional treatment process involving aeration of the activated sludge [167]. Even if MFCs are still

holding on to be completely commercialized, they are not confined to the laboratories alone. MFCs have ventured into a few smaller-scale applications, which mostly require long-haul, sustainable low power supply, viz. for sensors for small electronic devices, cell phones, robots, and urinals. From the industrial application point of view, several start-up companies have been already established and are trying to commercialize it as illustrated in Table 5. Such recent progress in MFC design highlighted the optimization and economic efficiency of operating conditions. However, practical MFC systems must be demonstrated in a step towards marketing, but they can present new challenges and limitations that must be tackled systematically in the years to come. Table 6 comprises various patents involving lignocellulosic biomass as substrates in MFC for the production of value-added products.


## **Table 5.** Various MFC commercialization.

**Table 6.** Various Patents associated with MFC utilizing Agricultural biomass as substrate.


