Abstract
Microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) had a good performance during the treatment of bio-refractory wastewater. This study focused on wood vinegar (from biomass pyrolysis) treatment via MECs with biochar anode. The results indicated that MECs with coconut shell biochar as the anode had an obvious beneficial effect for treating wood vinegar. When wood vinegar was used as the substrate of MECs, COD removal reached up to 71.4%, and effluent COD was 359.0 mg COD/L. GC-MS analysis showed that furfurals present in the wood vinegar were thoroughly degraded after MEC treatment. One interesting finding is that hydrocarbons accounted for a large portion of the compounds in the effluent, which may be the comprehensive result of complex organic reactions, including decarboxylation reactions, dehydration reaction, etc. The dominant microbial populations in MEC with biochar anode mainly included Geobacter, Macellibacteroides, Oscillibacter, Sedimentibacter, Comamonas and Lachnoclostridium. In particular, Lachnoclostridium (3.34%), a new family of exoelectrogens, may be correlated with the degradation of wood vinegar. This study demonstrated that pyrolysis biochar could be incorporated as a high-efficiency MEC anode material, and MECs with the inclusion of biochar could provide a feasible way for the treatment of recalcitrant wood vinegar.
Highlights
In recent years, pyrolysis has attracted a great amount of attention as a valuable waste treatment method (Gascó et al, 2018)
We investigate the feasibility of wood vinegar treatment via Microbial electrolysis cell (MEC)
Characteristics of the Wood Vinegar Generated From Biomass Pyrolysis Process
Summary
Pyrolysis has attracted a great amount of attention as a valuable waste treatment method (Gascó et al, 2018). The yield of wood vinegar is over 20% among the pyrolysis products This signifies that when 1000 kg of feedstock is treated, more than 200 kg of wood vinegar will be produced (Ratanapisit et al, 2009; Wu Q. et al, 2015). We investigate the feasibility of wood vinegar treatment via MECs. Two typical biochars from pyrolysis of waste biomass were used as microbial carrier materials to improve the utilization and transfer of electrons due to its abundant micropore structures and oxygen-containing functional groups. This study provides a theoretical basis for refractory wood vinegar treatment via MECs, but it supplies a new utilization pathway for widespread application of pyrolysis biochar as an MEC electrode material
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