Continuous Electricity Generation and Pollutant Removal from Swine Wastewater Using a Single-Chambered Air-Cathode Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) represents a new method for simultaneously swine wastewater treatment and electricity generation. However, few studies revealed the high electricity generation and pollutant removal using a large-scale single-chambered MFC in treating swine wastewater. Results indicated optimal hydraulic retention time (HRT) of swine wastewater was 8 d considering the removal efficiency and the power density. Under this condition, this MFC system removed 85.62% TCOD and 73.6% NH3 as well as achieved power density of 368 mW/m2. Results also showed the maximum power density of the MFC was 382.5±10.6 mW/m2 MFC at 350 Ω. TCOD concentration in the swine wastewater was limiting factor for power output. The maximum power density was Pmax= 385 mW/m2, with a half-saturation concentration of Ks=2,050 mg/l. To our knowledge, this is the first time to demonstrate the electricity characteristics of a large-scale single-chambered MFC in treating swine wastewater.

Agricultural Waste and Wastewater as Feedstock for Bioelectricity Generation Using Microbial Fuel Cells: Recent Advances

“…Others reported swine wastewater treatment while generating a maximum power density of 45 mW/m 2 in MFC made up of two-chambered aqueous cathodes [111]. In a further experiment of similar wastewater, a maximum power density of 261 mW/m 2 was generated in an MFC made up of a single-chambered air-cathode [112], whereas 382 mW/m 2 was recorded elsewhere [113].…”

Investigation of the Influence of Membrane Type on the Performance of Microbial Fuel Cell

“…A typical bio-electrochemical systems (BESs) are capable to alleviate energy consumption and resource recovery crises [10,11,7,12,3,13,14] (such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for electricity generation, microbial desalination cells (MDCs) for brackish water desalination, and microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) for hydrogen production) [10]. The microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a device that utilizes microorganisms as a catalyst to directly transform the organic matter chemical energy that existed in wastewater into electrical energy [15,5,16]. MFCs have been designed in many configurations and constructed from various materials [17].…”

Application of Microbial Fuel Cells for Bioremediation of Environmental Pollutants: An Overview

“…Researchers across the globe have investigated the application of MFCs for the treatment of different types of wastewaters viz. municipal or domestic wastewater (Khan et al, 2017), food processing wastewater (Boghani et al, 2017), protein food industry wastewater (Ieropoulos et al, 2017), acidogenic food waste leachate (Li et al, 2013a), beverages industry wastewater (Çetinkaya et al, 2015), beer brewery wastewater (Köroglu et al, 2014), winery wastewater (Penteado et al, 2015), confectionary industry wastewater (Patil et al, 2009), dairy industry wastewater (Mansoorian et al, 2016), yoghurt wastewater (Cercado-Quezada et al, 2010), agro-processing industry wastewater (Gurung and Oh, 2015), cassava mill wastewater (Sangeetha and Muthukumar, 2013), palm oil mill effluent (Nor et al, 2015), mustard tuber wastewater (Guo et al, 2015), livestock industry wastewater (Katuri et al, 2012), animal carcass wastewater (Li et al, 2013b), swine wastewater (Cheng et al, 2014), mining and allied industry wastewater (Choi and Hu, 2013), recalcitrant pharmaceutical industrial effluent (Zhang et al, 2015a), steroidal drug production wastewater (Liu et al, 2012), paper recycling industry wastewater (Kassongo and Togo, 2011) and petrochemical industry wastewater (Morris and Jin, 2012). The MFC technology has been accepted because of its eco-friendly approach compared to conventional technologies towards the control of environmental pollution.…”