The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of the cathodic catalyst (either chalcogenide or Pt) on bioelectricity production from actual municipal leachate in a microbial fuel cell equipped with an anode made of granular graphite (MFC-G) and seeded with an inoculum enriched in Mn(IV)-reducing bacteria. Each face (I and II) of the MFC-G was characterized by separate (I and II), in series, and parallel connection. Parallel connection of faces increased the maximum volumetric power up to 1239 and 1799 mW m(-3) for RuxMoySez and Pt, respectively. In general parallel connection of electrode faces significantly decreased the R-int (44 and 77 Omega for RuxMoySez and Pt, respectively). In the batch operation where the cells were connected to external resistances (R-ext) the average volumetric powers PV-ave in the second cycle of batch operation were 1005 +/- 5 and 1317 +/- 687 mW m(-3) whereas organic matter removal efficiencies of 70 and 85% were registered for the RuxMoySez and Pt, respectively. During the repetitive batch operation of the cells loaded with an actual leachate there was preliminary evidence of an in-cell enrichment process. In principle, the MFC with catalyst RuxMoySez exhibited a performance 24% and 20% lower than that with Pt (on PV-ave and organic matter removal basis, respectively). This would point to a trade-off or compromise solution, since the cost of RuxMoySez catalyst is 70% lower than that of Pt. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.