Abstract
Microbial electrochemical systems (MESs) are a rapidly growing technology at the nexus of wastewater treatment. These systems use microbes to convert biodegradable organic matter present in wastewater into simple compounds and electric current. MESs have shown a high potential for wastewater treatment as their COD removal rates can reach up to 90%, with columbic efficiencies, which represent the fraction of electrons recovered as current versus the maximum possible recovery, being higher than 80%. This developing technology introduces a flexible and transformative solution for integrated wastewater treatment for resource and energy recovery. In MESs, capacitive or faraday interactions occur between living microbial cells and electrodes. Till now, a plethora of derived MESs has been developed, like microbial desalination cells, microbial electrolysis cells, microbial electrosynthesis (MES), microbial fuel cells (MFCs), microbial carbon capture, photo microbial fuel cells (photo MFCs), and biocomputing, etc. MESs are highly versatile and it is therefore imperative to assess the commercial viability of the process while treating large volumes of wastewater during real-time application. Among the different MESs, MFCs are an emerging technology for electricity and bio-hydrogen production from wastewater. Within this chapter, different wastewater treatment technologies based on MESs are proposed, focusing research on fundamental aspects of MFCs. The importance of various MESs based on their application is critically discussed with insights into their principles and working mechanisms. Also, various key elements impacting bioelectricity generation in MFCs were identified and all these aspects are clearly outlined with feasible future developments.
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