Conductive open-porous material

Abstract

A material having an open-porous structure and a conductive coating comprising carbon fibre fragments formed on the open-porous structure. The conductive coating may comprise carbon black, amorphous carbon, activated carbon or graphite flakes. The open-porous structure can comprise a non-conductive polymer foam such as one comprising polyethylene (PE). An electrode for a bioelectrochemical system may be formed using the material. The bioelectrochemical system may be a microbial electrolysis cell 100 or a microbial fuel call and the electrode may be the anode (figure 2, 130) or cathode (figure 2, 134) . The conductive coating can use magnetite and carbon fibre. The carbon fibre can be treated via an oxidative process before inclusion in the coating. Figure 1