Uncertainty Budget Analysis and its role in Microbial Fuel Cell Parameter Characterization

Abstract

Many renewable technologies are currently being investigated to reduce the world’s dependence on greenhouse-gas emitting energy sources. This paper seeks to demonstrate how industrial metrological techniques may be employed in the evaluation of uncertainty of one of these techniques – the Microbial Fuel Cell. A description of how uncertainty analysis is evaluated in metrological laboratories for temperature measurement is presented, with the intention of applying the same technique to temperature measurements obtained when assessing microbial fuel cell performance. A JAVA-based temperature uncertainty budget calculator was also developed based on the assumptions used to perform the uncertainty analysis. This open-source application enables laboratories to compare uncertainties in their temperature measuring instruments. The Uncertainty Analysis is based on a method employed at an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited Metrological Laboratory