Abstract
Microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) constitute the core of a number of emerging technologies with a high potential for treating urban wastewater due to a fascinating reaction mechanism—the electron transfer between bacteria and electrodes to transform metabolism into electrical current. In the current work, we focus on the model electroactive microorganism Geobacter sulfurreducens to explore both the design of new start-up procedures and electrochemical operations. Our chemostat-grown plug and play cells, were able to reduce the start-up period by 20-fold while enhancing chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by more than 6-fold during this period. Moreover, a filter-press based bioreactor was successfully tested for both acetate-supplemented synthetic wastewater and real urban wastewater. This proof-of-concept pre-pilot treatment included a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) followed in time by a microbial fuel cell (MFC) to finally generate electrical current of ca. 20 A·m−2 with a power of 10 W·m−2 while removing 42 g COD day−1·m−2. The effective removal of acetate suggests a potential use of this modular technology for treating acetogenic wastewater where Geobacter sulfurreducens outcompetes other organisms.
Highlights
Urban wastewater treatment is a biological process typically associated with energy consumption due to the air supply required for promoting microbial growth [1]
The bioelectrochemical system (BES) explored in this study aims to oxidize acetate to CO2 on the anode (i.e., C2H4O2 + 2H2O Ñ 2CO2 + 8e + 8H+, E = ́290 mV)
bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are suitable technologies for treating urban wastewater, a number of factors should be explored in order to optimize the methodology and make them profitable
Summary
Urban wastewater treatment is a biological process typically associated with energy consumption due to the air supply required for promoting microbial growth [1]. It may be feasible to turn wastewater treatment into a self-sustaining process by using the energy in the wastewater. The use of wastewater as an energy source by using microbial electrochemical technology (MET) based on the electrochemical interaction between microbes and electrodes is feasible [5]. These biological redox reactions are at the core of METs [6,7,8,9]. From the very beginning of this technology’s discovery [10] it was proposed to have a promising role in wastewater treatment by allowing for a good effluent quality while converting the biodegradable materials into electric energy
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