Enhancement of pollutants removal from real sewage by embedding microbial fuel cell in anaerobic–anoxic–oxic wastewater treatment process

Abstract

BACKGROUND Developing an economical biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal technology with high efficiency has become a research priority in current sewage treatment procedures. In order to solve the problems within the anaerobic–anoxic–oxic (A2/O) process, including substrates competition and high energy consumption, a microbial fuel cell (MFC) was embedded in the A2/O process to enhance the efficiencies of removal of nitrogen and phosphorus, along with electricity production. RESULTS Three A2/O reactors, one with an embedded MFC, were set up, and nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiencies and electricity generation were investigated. At the stage of stable operation, the chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen and total phosphorus removal efficiencies of the MFC‐A2/O reactor, compared with the control, were increased by 15.9%, 9.3% and 1.4% on average, respectively. The average output power density of the MFC was 14.3 ± 1.4 mW m−3 and the internal resistance was 6000 Ω. Grey relational analysis was applied to study the most significant operational parameter of the A2/O process affecting electricity production of the MFC. CONCLUSIONS This research proved that nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiency could be improved by embedding an MFC in the A2/O process. In addition, the MFC‐A2/O reactor can generate electricity continuously. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry

The Development of Electrode Materials for Microbial Fuel Cells

“…However, the existing cheap cathode materials have low catalytic efficiency. Even if there are still some problems in the preliminary stage, the MFC has presented a promising technology for renewable energy production and still have some potential application, such as strengthening waste water treatment [28] , monitoring water quality [29] , and producing hydrogen [30] et al In the coming decades, MFC will involve more and more scientists and engineers who major in waste water treatment and energy production. …”

The integrated processes for wastewater treatment based on the principle of microbial fuel cells: A review

“…With regard to municipal wastewater treatment, a study of integrating MFC into anaerobic/anoxic/oxic process (A 2 /O) has been reported (Xie et al, 2014b). It showed that the system can further improve the effluent quality.…”

Evaluation of limiting factors for current density in microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs) treating domestic wastewater

“…Lefebvre et al (2013) [18] reported high current density of 110 A/m 3 in an MXC from domestic wastewater, mainly due to high packing density of anodes in a small anode chamber (15 mL of working volume). In comparison, most of literature employing relatively large MXCs has commonly shown small current density from 0.4 to 43 A/m 3 for domestic wastewater [1], [9], [35], [36]. Feng et al [9] recently reported the maximum current density of 0.43 A/m 3 in a large-scale MXC (1 m 3 ), despite of using carbon brush anode, which implies the challenge of achieving high current density in large MXCs treating sewage.…”