Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) provides a new approach of harvesting electrical energy from the organic waste by treating wastewater without aeration. This research work  was carried out in order to understand the working principle of MFC by designing  and constructing a single chamber membrane-less MFC with a capacity of 15 Liter.
 The parameters such as electrode spacing, nature of substrate, electrode
 materials and operating temperature were investigated and optimized so as to enhance  the performance of MFC in terms of COD removal efficiency and power generation.  Different experiments were carried out by varying the unit step distance between  electrodes from 1 inch to 5 inch using canal river wastewater at an ambient  temperature of 20 ⁰C. Each experiment was run for six hours. It was observed  that COD removal efficiency decreases with reducing the electrode spacing while  the maximum average voltage of 105 mV is achieved with an electrode separation  of 3 inch. Furthermore, to analyze the effect of temperature, canal water was  treated in MFC for six hours at an electrode spacing of 3 inch for the  temperature of 20, 30, 40 and 50 ⁰C and it was investigated that highest  average voltage generation of 150 mV is achieved at a temperature of 40 ⁰C  compared to 105 mV, 129 mV and 109 mV at 20 ⁰C, 30 ⁰C and 50 ⁰C respectively.
 The wastewater from canal river and sugar industry was used as a substrate as described in this study. It was found that the industrial wastewater, rich in carbohydrates and organic matter produces higher power density as compared to canal river water.  Maximum voltage of 265 mV and COD removal efficiency of 80% was achieved by  treating the canal river water for 18 days while 707 mV and 95% COD removal  efficiency were achieved by treating wastewater from sugar industry at a HRT of  18 days under the optimum operating conditions.