Oily wastewater treatment by a continuous flow microbial fuel cell and packages of cells with serial and parallel flow connections

Abstract

This study reports the results of the application of microbial fuel cells (MFC) in refinery wastewater (RW) treatment. In this research, the effect of hydraulic retention time (HRT), and scale-up on the performance of a novel expandable modular design of single-chamber MFC (SCMFC) has been investigated. In the first part of the paper, the effect of HRT on chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and electricity generation was examined. The generated steady open-circuit voltage (OCV) was 785 mV at HRT 90 h, and the provided maximum power density (PD) was 113 mW/m2 at HRT 15 h. At HRT of 45 h, COD removal increased up to 87% via an increase in the HRT. In the second part, the scale-up of SCMFC was investigated by serial (SFC) or parallel (PFC) connecting the outlets and inlets of fluid flows. The average produced OCV was 760 mV in PFC mode, and average produced PD in PFC and SFC modes were 97 and 75.6 mW/m2, respectively. COD removal in SFC and PFC modes were reported to be 89 and 42%, respectively. Compared to PFC mode, SFC mode was more efficient in terms of COD removal and coulombic efficiency. However, it produced lower PD compared to PFC mode. It is possible to control the quality and capacity of wastewater treatment by using combining the SFC and PFC mode connections in packages of MFCs.