A pilot trial in the remediation of pollutants simultaneously with bioenergy generation through microbial fuel cell

Abstract

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is one of the popular approaches to degrading pollutants while generating energy. This study highlights a new idea for the scientific community by treating organic and inorganic pollutants simultaneously in addition to energy generation. To date, no attempt at the treatment of a dual-pollutant system (organic and inorganic) via MFC has been reported. Similarly, the use of palm sugar as an organic substrate is also reported for the first time in this work. Palm sugar is found to be a promising solution to address the challenges in the selection of organic substrates for MFC. The achieved power density was 130.26 mW/m2 within 44 days of operation. The removal efficiency of Pb2+ was 88% while the biodegradation efficiency of resorcinol was 93.50%. Electrochemical studies revealed a specific capacitance of 1.7 × 10−4 F/g and a total internal resistance of 717.17 Ω (Rs = 685.97 Ω and Rct = 31.20 Ω) on the 80th day. As a result of 16 S rRNA sequencing and primary isolation, it was found that Bacillus and Pseudomonas are species that dominate the anode surface and are involved in pollution remediation. The present study also investigates the fundamental biodegradation and oxidation mechanisms of pollutants as well as the organic substrate. In addition, the most concerning challenges to this technique`s commercialization are also briefly discussed.