Abstract
Osmotic microbial fuel cells (OsMFCs) can integrate forward osmosis into microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which are able to perform organic elimination, bioenergy production, and high-class water abstraction from wastewater. However, it is not well understood how the unique feature of OsMFCs, i.e., water flux, helps improve current generation. Based on experimental studies and the Springer model theory, a new method for representing water transmission in OsMFC membranes is put forward that considers water transmission by electro-osmosis resulting from proton flux through the membrane and by osmosis resulting from osmotic pressure grades of water. In this research, osmotic water transmission is associated with the permeable differential pressure resulting from the ionic differential concentration in the membrane, and electro-osmotic water transmission is found to be proportional to the current density employed but irrelevant to the composition gradients. The net water transmission in OsMFC depends on the operation time and increases accordingly with higher current density and composition gradients. Furthermore, the membrane’s proton conductibility and water-transmission capabilities are significantly affected by the moisture content, which decreases from the negative electrode to the positive electrode in the OsMFC system. Increasing water flux with higher osmotic pressure and current density is therefore able to diminish the resistance of the membrane.
Highlights
Forward osmosis (FO) membranes are regarded as an innovative technology, and they have recently attracted increasing attention in the areas of effluent disposal and recycling [1]
For Osmotic microbial fuel cells (OsMFCs), an FO membrane, rather than CEM, is applied for the purpose of separating the positive electrode and the negative pole, and this semipermeable membrane can only pervade the proton from high to low water potential when driven by a permeable differential pressure [3]
Since OsMFC is a technology that is utilized to dispose of different pollutants and produce bioelectricity, it does not need to consume electricity
Summary
Forward osmosis (FO) membranes are regarded as an innovative technology, and they have recently attracted increasing attention in the areas of effluent disposal and recycling [1]. Due to the use of the driving power of osmotic pressure instead of hydraulic pressure, FO membranes can obtain pure water, which is higher in quality because of its high retention rate of various pollutants. The quality of the wastewater for the further utilization of MFCs must be promoted in the course of wastewater disposal. The diversity of traditional MFCs means that OsMFCs are able to distill high-quality water from the anolyte, including wastewater, by utilizing an FO membrane. OsMFCs are able to produce more electricity in interrupted and continuous modes by utilizing saline or synthetic sea water as the catholyte [4]. The utilization of FO membranes can produce more electricity than the application of CEM, the reason remains unknown.
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