Simultaneous Generation of Bioelectricity and Treatment of Swine Wastewater in a Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

This study aimed at the simultaneous treatment of wastewater obtained from swine and generation of bioenergy in form of electricity from the energy stored in the organic component of the wastewater. The Open circuit voltage, current, power density and microbiological and physicochemical parameters were monitored. An initial Open circuit voltage of 516mV, Current of 0.29mA, and Power density of 32.74mW/m2were recorded, which increased to give maximum Open Circuit Voltages of 836mV, Current of 0.49mA, and Power density of 88.45mW/m2. The results revealed that The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Organic carbon, Total Soluble solids (TSS), Ammonia, Ammonium and Ammonium-Nitrogen all showed percentage decrease of 85.92%, 51.74%, 78.16%, 98.87%, 55.87%, 55.79% and 55.90% respectively while parameters such as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Nitrate, Nitrate-Nitrogen, Phosphates, Phosphorus and Orthophosphates however increased after treatment to give a percentage increase of -273.60%, -131.65%, -134.85%, -168.77%, -159.26%, and -157.03% respectively. Bacteria isolates identified at the biofilms on the anode wereCorynebacteriumspecie, Bacillusspecie, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosaandStreptococcus faecalis. The results from this study further exacerbate the Bioelectricity production as well as wastewater treatment potentials of the Microbial Fuel Cell technology.

Continuous flow, large‐scale, microbial fuel cell system for the sustained treatment of swine waste

“…Other researchers using swine wastewater showed ammonium removal and an increase of the nitrate and nitrite concentrations most likely due to nitrification at the cathode surface due to the presence of oxygen (Egbadon et al, ; Min et al, ). Our system shows an opposite trend to what has been reported in the MFC literature to date.…”

“…The system was operated for 76 days, and the COD removal efficiency in this case was up to 91%. Another high COD removal efficiency of 86% was reported from Egbadon et al (), who used a dual‐chamber MFC with ferricyanide as a catholyte and a total working volume of 1.0 liter. The system was operated in batch mode with a HRT of 21 days.…”

“…Bioelectrochemical systems have successfully demonstrated the treatment of swine wastewater at the laboratory scale (Egbadon et al, ; Ichihashi & Hirooka, ; Kim, Dec, Bruns, & Logan, ; Kim, Yang, Evans, & Logan, ; Lim, Park, Kim, & Shin, ). Min, Kim, Oh, Regan, & Logan () were the first to report the possibility of swine wastewater treatment using a single‐chamber MFC in year 2005.…”

Assessing Inocula for Microbial Activity and Biofilm Formation for Wastewater Treatment in Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Copyright  Aiyer KS Lesser extent of biofilm formation on anodes present in diluted wastewaters lead to smaller peak heights. The results likely indicate that the mechanism of electricity generation was by direct transfer of electrons to the electrode by bacteria present on the anode surface [40].…”