Integration Of Microbial Fuel Cell Research Articles

Effect of Microbial Fuel Cell, fertilizer, and plant spacing on nitrogen dynamics in paddy soil

<p>Nitrogen is one of the primary nutrients required for growing rice. Still, the efficiency of urea fertilizer application is very low (20-40%) due to the nitrogen loss process, one of which is denitrification. This study aims to determine the effects of combining Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC), plant spacing, and fertilization on nitrogen dynamics in paddy fields. The combination of treatments are expected to reduce the nitrogen loss in paddy fields, and plants can absorb it efficiently. A total of six treatments included Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) (2 levels: without MFC and with MFC), plant spacing (2 levels: conventional spacing 25 cm × 25 cm and <em>jajar legowo</em> spacing 25 cm × 12.5 cm × 50 cm), and fertilization (2 levels: without fertilizer and with 500 kg ha<sup>-1</sup> of NPK fertilizer), with three replications for each combination. The observed parameters included total soil nitrogen, nitrate, nitrogen uptake, chlorophyll, nitrogen-fixing and denitrifying bacteria, and N<sub>2</sub>O gas emissions. The results showed that combining MFC, conventional spacing, and NPK fertilizer in the paddy fields resulted in a high total soil nitrogen (0.44%). The results showed different effects on total soil nitrogen in the MFC and fertilization treatments, leading to increased nitrate levels, nutrient uptake, and chlorophyll. Increasing total soil nitrogen significantly contributes to leaf development and significantly aids photosynthesis. The integration of MFC and fertilization observed in this study resulted in a real impact on nitrogen dynamics in paddy fields. This combined treatment effectively reduces total nitrogen loss due to denitrification in paddy fields, thereby increasing the efficiency of uptake by plants.</p>

Exploring the Role of Microbial Fuel Cells in Sustainable Wastewater Treatment and Energy Generation

<p>Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) offers a promising solution for addressing both waste water treatment and challenges in renewable energy production. This study aims to explore the integration of MFCs with adsorption/bio-oxidation (AB) process to tackle wastewater management difficulties while generating renewable energy. By investigating microbial mechanisms within MFCs, enhancing pollutant removal efficacy, and assessing MFC application feasibility, we seek to advance eco-friendly wastewater treatment and renewable energy harvesting. Lab-scale experiments will identify microbial communities, characterize electron transfer processes, and evaluate MFC performance in pollutant removal. Through systematic experimentation with varied operational parameters and substrate concentrations, we aim to optimize MFC efficiency. Electrochemical assessments, including power output tests and electron flow rates, quantify MFC energy generation capabilities. Environmental and financial sustainability aspects, such as cost-benefit analysis and life cycle assessment, will be integrated to assess MFC viability compared to traditional wastewater treatment systems. The outcomes of this research will contribute to scientific knowledge expansion, providing insights for policymakers, water utilities, and environmentalists to embrace green technologies for water contamination mitigation, energy efficiency enhancement, and sustainable development.</p>

Perspectives on microbial fuel cells cathode improvement for bioenergy generation

Studies have shown the unlimited benefits attributed to using microbial fuel cell (MFC) in our scientific societies for the conversion of organic waste materials into bio-energy with the aid of micro-organisms catalyzed anode and enzymatic-microbial influenced cathode via electrochemical reactions. However, numerous shortcomings calling for serious investigations have equally been identified despite the inestimable benefits of this clean energy technology. A major one is the need for MFC cathode improvement to enhance bioenergy generation. The current situations and challenges of using MFC together with loop holes that are needed to be filled by researchers were critically explained. Additionally, this paper examines the importance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) as a source of renewable energy generation. The major focus was on techniques of improving the output of MFCs via its cathode. The addition of catalyst on cathode surface, upscale integration of MFCs and antifouling of gas diffusion electrodes used in MFCs were discussed. Relevant areas that can be considered for future research on improvement of MFCs cathode for long term operation were stated.

Integration of MFC reduces CH4, N2O and NH3 emissions in batch-fed wetland systems

The combination of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with constructed wetlands (CWs) for enhancing water purification efficiency and generating bioelectricity has attracted extensive attention. However, the other benefits of MFC-CWs are seldom reported, especially the potential for controlling gaseous emissions. In this study, we have quantitatively compared the pollutant removal efficiency and the emission of multiple gases between MFC-CWs and batch-fed wetland systems (BF CWs). MFC-CWs exhibited significantly (p < 0.01) higher COD, NH4+-N, TN, and TP removal efficiencies and significantly (p < 0.01) lower global warming potential (GWP) than BF CWs. The integration of MFC decreased GWP by 23.88% due to the reduction of CH4 and N2O fluxes, whereas the CO2 fluxes were slightly promoted. The quantitative PCR results indicate that the reduced N2O fluxes in MFC-CWs were driven by the reduced transcription of the nosZ gene and enhanced the ratio of nosZ/(nirS + nirK); the reduced CH4 fluxes were related to pomA and mcrA. Additionally, the NH3 fluxes were reduced by 52.20% in MFC-CWs compared to BF CWs. The integration of MFC promoted the diversity of microbial community, especially Anaerolineaceae, Saprospiraceae and Clostridiacea. This study highlights a further benefit of MFC-CWs and provides a new strategy for simultaneously removing pollutants and abating multiple gas emissions in BF CWs.

Application of Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) for Pharmaceutical Wastewater Treatment: An Overview and Future Perspectives

Pharmaceutical wastewater (PWW) is rapidly growing into one of the world’s most serious environmental and public health issues. Existing wastewater treatment systems carry numerous loopholes in supplying the ever-increasing need for potable water resulting from rises in population, urbanization, and industrial growth, and the volume of wastewater produced is growing each day. At present, conventional treatment methods, such as coagulation, sedimentation, oxidation, membrane filtration, flocculation, etc., are used to treat PWW. In contrast to these, the application of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for decontaminating PWW can be a promising technology to replace these methods. MFC technologies have become a trending research topic in recent times. MFCs have also garnered the interest of researchers worldwide as a promising environmental remediation technique. This review extensively discusses the flaws in standalone conventional processes and the integration of MFCs to enhance electricity production and contaminant removal rates, especially with respect to PWW. This article also summarizes the studies reported on various antibiotics and wastes from pharmaceutical industries treated by MFCs, and their efficiencies. Furthermore, the review explains why further research is needed to establish the actual efficiency of MFCs to achieve sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective wastewater treatment. A brief on technoeconomic impacts has also been made to provide a glimpse of the way these technologies might replace present-day conventional methods.

Microbial Fuel Cell United with Other Existing Technologies for Enhanced Power Generation and Efficient Wastewater Treatment

Nowadays, the world is experiencing an energy crisis due to extensive globalization and industrialization. Most of the sources of renewable energy are getting depleted, and thus, there is an urge to locate alternative routes to produce energy efficiently. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a favorable technology that utilizes electroactive microorganisms acting as a biocatalyst at the anode compartment converting organic matter present in sewage water for bioelectricity production and simultaneously treating wastewater. However, there are certain limitations with a typical stand-alone MFC for efficient energy recovery and its practical implementation, including low power output and high cost associated with treatment. There are various modifications carried out on MFC for eliminating the limitations of a stand-alone MFC. Examples of such modification include integration of microbial fuel cell with capacitive deionization technology, forward osmosis technology, anaerobic digester, and constructed wetland technology. This review describes various integrated MFC systems along with their potential application on an industrial scale for wastewater treatment, biofuel generation, and energy production. As a result, such integration of MFCs with existing systems is urgently needed to address the cost, fouling, durability, and sustainability-related issues of MFCs while also improving the grade of treatment received by effluent.

Acclimation performance of constructed wetland coupled with microbial fuel cell for ammonia treatment of wastewaters at high loading rate

Global challenges on water and energy crisis have pressurized on water treatment industry to put into practice advanced technologies for ensuring a suitable supply of either water or energy services. Compared with other biological treatment technologies, constructed wetland (CW) is widely considered as an efficient eco-technology for wastewater treatment with the advantages of low cost, simple operation and maintenance. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology is the recently emerging approach in environmental engineering. The integration of MFCs within vertical up-flow CW systems (VSF-CW) as a sustainable technology, therefore, could provide dual benefits in nitrogen removal of wastewaters and energy recovery simultaneously. This study has preliminarily evaluated the acclimation performance of VSF-CW-MFC systems at the high loading rate (4.2 mg COD/h.L; COD:N = 10:1) of domestic wastewaters containing ammonia. Results demonstrated the potential of VSF-CW-MFC systems in achieving electricity generation and ammonia removal of domestic wastewaters at the high loading rate. The plant presence and influent pH of 7.0 could improve the performance efficiency. Average removal efficiencies of NH4+ and COD in planted microcosms with the influent pH of 7.0 were 43.4% and 79%, respectively.

Strategies to Boost MFC Power By Supercapacitive Materials and Components

The low cost, the intrinsic robustness, the low environmental impact combined with the potential integration with the current production processes are some of the strength points that are pushing the research on Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) since the last thirty years. Still, to become a technology capable of incisively change the water and energetic landscape critical issues, MFCs needs to be improved for power output and quality. Here we report about three main strategies to address this challenge: i) the enhancement of the oxygen redox reaction at the cathode in the circum-neutral pH environment of MFCs by PGM-free catalysts based on Manganese and/or Iron oxides prepared by fast autocombustion from nitrates and glycols; ii) the exploitation of the inherent capacitive behaviour of the metal (Fe, Mn) oxides cathodes, iii) the smart integration of MFCs with commercial supercapacitors properly sized and connected in order to match short recharge time and high power output. Acknowledgments The research has been carried out under the Italy-South Africa joint Research Programme 2018-2020 Italian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of the Environment. References Malaie, Keyvan, et al. "Simple preparation of carbon–bimetal oxide nanospinels for high-performance bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts." New Journal of Chemistry 42.24 (2018): 20156-20162.Francesca Soavi, Keyvan Malaie and Mohammad Reza Ganjal, “Towards low-cost and sustainable supercapacitor electrode processing simultaneous carbon grafting and coating of mixed-valence metal oxides by fast annealing ”, Frontiers, Accepted manuscript

Constructed wetland integrated microbial fuel cell system: looking back, moving forward.

In the last 10 years, the microbial fuel cell (MFC) has been extensively studied worldwide to extract energy from wastewater via electricity generation. More recently, a merged technique of embedding MFC into a constructed wetland (CW) has been developed and appears to be increasingly investigated. The driving force to integrate these two technologies lies in the fact that CWs naturally possess a redox gradient (depending on flow direction and wetland depth), which is required by MFCs as anaerobic anode and aerobic cathode chambers. No doubt, the integration of MFC with a CW will upgrade the CW to allow it to be used for wastewater treatment and, simultaneously, electricity generation, making CWs more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Currently, published work shows that India, China, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Malaysia are involved in the development of this technology although it is in its infant stage and many technical issues are faced on system configuration, operation and maximisation of electricity production. This paper aims to provide an updated review and analysis of the CW-MFC development. Focuses are placed on the experience gained so far from different researchers in the literature and further research directions and proposals are discussed in great detail.

Long-term performance of a 20-L continuous flow microbial fuel cell for treatment of brewery wastewater

Abstract Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been shown as a promising technology for wastewater treatment. Integration of MFCs into current wastewater treatment plant have potential to reduce the operational cost and improve the treatment performance, and scaling up MFCs will be essential. However, only a few studies have reported successful scale up attempts. Fabrication cost, treatment performance and operational lifetime are critical factors to optimize before commercialization of MFCs. To test these factors, we constructed a 20 L MFC system containing two 10 L MFC reactors and operated the system with brewery wastewater for nearly one year. Several operational conditions were tested, including different flowrates, applied external resistors, and poised anodic potentials. The condition resulting in the highest chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency (94.6 ± 1.0%) was a flow rate of 1 mL min −1 (HRT = 313 h) and an applied resistor of 10 Ω across each MFC circuit. Results from each of the eight stages of operation (325 days total) indicate that MFCs can sustain treatment rates over a long-term period and are robust enough to sustain performance even after system perturbations. possible ways to improve MFC performance were discussed for future studies.

Flow dependent performance of microfluidic microbial fuel cells.

The integration of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) in a microfluidic geometry can significantly enhance the power density of these cells, which would have more active bacteria per unit volume. Moreover, microfluidic MFCs can be operated in a continuous mode as opposed to the traditional batch-fed mode. Here we investigate the effect of fluid flow on the performance of microfluidic MFCs. The growth and the structure of the bacterial biofilm depend to a large extent on the shear stress of the flow. We report the existence of a range of flow rates for which MFCs can achieve maximum voltage output. When operated under these optimal conditions, the power density of our microfluidic MFC is about 15 times that of a similar-size batch MFC. Furthermore, this optimum suggests a correlation between the behaviour of bacteria and fluid flow.

Towards sustainable wastewater treatment by using microbial fuel cells-centered technologies

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been conceived and intensively studied as a promising technology to achieve sustainable wastewater treatment. However, doubts and debates arose in recent years regarding the technical and economic viability of this technology on a larger scale and in a real-world applications. Hence, it is time to think about and examine how to recalibrate this technology's role in a future paradigm of sustainable wastewater treatment. In the past years, many good ideas/approaches have been proposed and investigated for MFC application, but information is scattered. Various review papers were published on MFC configuration, substrates, electrode materials, separators and microbiology but there is lack of critical thinking and systematic analysis of MFC application niche in wastewater treatment. To systematically formulate a strategy of (potentially) practical MFC application and provide information to guide MFC development, this perspective has critically examined and discussed the problems and challenges for developing MFC technology, and identified a possible application niche whereby MFCs can be rationally incorporated into the treatment process. We propose integration of MFCs with other treatment technologies to form an MFC-centered treatment scheme based on thoroughly analyzing the challenges and opportunities, and discuss future efforts to be made for realizing sustainable wastewater treatment.