Abstract
Microbial electrochemical systems (METs) present an upcoming avenue for the production of various environmental relevant products such as bioelectricity (microbial fuel cell [MFC]), platform chemicals (microbial electrochemical synthesis), biohydrogen (microbial electrochemical cell) from waste, and desalination (microbial desalination cell). On the hind side, they also contribute to treatment and disposal of waste and sludge. This can be translated into their corresponding benefits in financial and environmental terms. Since most of the technologies are upcoming and still at lab-scale but show promising prospects for the future, technoeconomic and life cycle assessment (LCA) studies are conducted to estimate their profitability and sustainability. This chapter presents an account of various studies conducted on technoeconomic analysis (TEA) and LCA of various METs and their novel combinations with existing conventional technologies such as osmotic MFC, internal-stack-trickling bioelectrochemical reactor. The TEA and LCA are based on inventories such as construction materials, chemical, nutrients, catalysts, electrodes, and membranes along with the energy utilization/production in terms of value-added chemicals. The LCA takes into consideration environmental consequences of METs with respect to the land (land use, terrestrial acidification), water (eutrophication, acidification, water consumption), atmosphere (global warming, ionizing radiation, ozone depletion) in addition to biotic ecosystem (human carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic toxicity). The TEA majorly focuses on the capital and operational expenditure and profitability in terms of return on investment. Most of the LCA and TEA studies are either based on lab-scale results, theoretical calculations based on mathematical modeling or software generated large-scale models of METs. However, sensitivity and uncertainty calculations are conducted to take care of the variations generated due to scale, geography, and time.
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