Eco-Innovative Power Supply Design for Air Preheaters in Tuba Distilleries Using Hybrid Solar-Microbial Fuel Cells

The growing demand for agricultural products such as lambanog has placed increased pressure and demand on traditional distillation processes, which continue to face growing challenges on biomass fuel, operational costs, and heavy reliance on manual labor. The study provides a sustainable energy solution by designing and constructing a hybrid power system that combines solar energy with microbial fuel cells (MFCs) using tuba waste, a byproduct of lambanog production. The system was designed to operate an air pre-heater that increases boiler temperature from an ambient temperature of 29 to 33 degrees up to 54.8 degrees with an efficiency of 91.85 %. This system recovers waste heat and enhances overall energy consumption during distillation. A small-scale prototype was constructed and tested, demonstrating that the hybrid system efficiently produced energy, 6 volts for the whole system of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs), having an average of 0.5 V and 0.26 mA per set of chambers and 12 volts for the Solar Energy system. The worker evaluations produced high satisfaction feedback with a total mean of 3.89, indicating a strong affirmation of the system's feasibility and environmental benefits. The results validate the practicality of renewable and waste-to-energy technologies in improving energy efficiency, lowering production costs, and promoting sustainable practices in local industry.