Treatment of brewery industrial wastewater and generation of sustainable bioelectricity by microbial fuel cell inoculated with locally isolated microorganisms

Abstract

The chemical energy contained in wastewater can be considered as a promising sustainable energy source and can be recovered using microbial fuel cell technology by means of electro-active bacteria. There are several brewery industries releasing wastewater into the environment, posing serious environmental issues. Herein, we demonstrated treatment of brewery wastewater and production of bioelectricity simultaneously using double chamber MFCs by inoculating locally isolated microorganisms. Microorganisms were locally isolated from brewery waste sludge (named as BSGB1 and BSGB2), brewery wastewater (BWGB3 and BWGB4) and food processing industry waste sludge (FSGB5 and FSGB6). Total dissolved solids (TDS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) were determined before and after treatment of brewery wastewater by locally isolated microorganisms. The results revealed that the microorganisms isolated from brewery waste sludge outperformed the bacteria isolated from brewery wastewater and food processing industry waste sludge. The maximum power density of 0.8 W/m3 and 0.35 W/m3 was generated by MFC inoculated with locally isolated microorganisms from brewery waste sludge using the synthetic and real-brewery wastewater, respectively. The removal efficiency of COD was 79−83%, indicating significant treatment of brewery wastewater by locally isolated microorganisms while generating sustainable and clean energy.