<p>Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a technology which uses microorganisms as catalyst to generate electricity from waste. However, one of the limitations of this technology is its low power output resulting due to phenomena such as methanogenesis. Pharmaceutical industries release wastewater containing pharmaceutically active compounds which affects the microbial community of the inoculum. Hence, a comparative study has been conducted to identify the most suitable suppression technique to be used during treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater in MFC. In the study, suppression techniques such as aeration (MFC_Ae), ultrasonication (MFC_U), aluminium dosing (MFC_Al), nitrate dosing (MFC_N) and chloroform dosing (MFC_Cl) were compared to control (MFC_C) while treating synthetic pharmaceutical wastewater. The highest open circuit voltage (OCV) was generated by MFC_Cl (712&#xa0;mV), followed by MFC_N (678&#xa0;mV), MFC_Ae (668&#xa0;mV), MFC_Al (659&#xa0;mV), MFC_U (654&#xa0;mV) and MFC_C (647&#xa0;mV). The COD removal efficiency was found to be highest in MFC_C (93.5%) followed by MFC_Ae (91.9%), MFC_Al (88.9%), MFC_U (88.7%), MFC_N (88.5%) and MFC_Cl (77%). The highest OCV generation, least chemical oxygen demand removal efficiency, highest power generation during polarization and highest coulombic efficiency observed in MFC_Cl confirms its efficacy to be comparatively better than that of other conventional methanogenesis suppression techniques.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>