Comprehensive Review on the Use of Food Industry Wastewater as Substrates in Microbial Fuel Cells

Abstract

Today, the world is facing climate change challenges with environmental protection being a top priority. Optimizing energy consumption due to its high cost and environment protection is a basic human demand. For industries, reduction in production costs is determinative to success. In this regard, Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a unique promising technology with wastewater treatment and bioelectricity generation. The MFCs will help reduce energy consumption, curb the wastewater pollution, and standardize it for releasing into the environment. The food industry by producing high volumes of biomass with high organic pollution load are highly prone to use in MFCs as a substrate. Various food industry effluents have been tested, in real or synthetic form in the MFCs. Due to the improvements in the process and progress in novel configurations, better results have been increasingly obtained. Now, the MFC can be used in the industries individually or by integration with other technologies. In this review, the latest results from the use of food industry wastewater in MFCs along with effective process conditions are evaluated.