Effect of pH and distance between electrodes on the performance of a sediment microbial fuel cell

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. Sajana ◽  
M. M. Ghangrekar ◽  
A. Mitra

The performance of three sediment microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) was evaluated at different feed water pH and electrode spacing for chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, total nitrogen (TN) removal, and power density; while offering in situ remediation of aquaculture pond water. SMFC-A was operated at the feed water pH of 6.5 and spacing between the electrodes of 100 cm. SMFC-B and SMFC-C were operated at feed water pHs of 8.5 and 6.5, respectively, and distance between electrodes of 50 cm. The anode and cathode were connected with concealed copper wire through an external load of 100 Ω. The average amount of total COD removal rate and TN removal rate, per unit area of cathode, were 1.72 ± 0.06 and 0.021 ± 0.007 g/m2 d in SMFC-A, 1.03 ± 0.08 and 0.024 ± 0.005 g/m2 d in SMFC-B, and 1.14 ± 0.01 and 0.017 ± 0.001 g/m2 d in SMFC-C, respectively. SMFC-A, operated with higher distance between electrodes, demonstrated better removal of organic matter and highest open circuit voltage of 0.903 V. SMFCs with less feed pH (6.5) gave higher COD removal and feed pH of 8.5 gave higher TN removal. SMFCs operated with lesser distance between electrodes gave higher power density.

Author(s):  
S. Louki ◽  
N. Touach ◽  
A. Benzaouak ◽  
V. M. Ortiz-Martínez ◽  
M. J. Salar-García ◽  
...  

This work investigates the photocatalytic activity of new ferroelectric material with formula (Li0.95Cu0.15)Ta0.76Nb0.19O3 (LT76) in a single chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) and compares its performance with the similar photocatalyst (Li0.95Cu0.15)Ta0.57Nb0.38O3 (LT57). The photocatalysts LT76 and LT57 were synthesized by ceramic route under the same conditions, with the same starting materials. The ratio Ta/Nb was fixed at 4.0 and 1.5 for LT76 and LT57, respectively. These phases were characterized by different techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), particle size distribution (PSD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and ultraviolet (UV)–visible (Vis). The new photocatalyst LT76 presents specific surface area of 0.791 m2/g and Curie temperature of 1197 °C. The photocatalytic efficiency of this material is assessed in terms of wastewater treatment and electricity generation by power density and removal rate of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the presence of a light source. The values of maximum power density and COD removal were 19.77 mW/m3 and 93%, respectively, for LT76.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Goto ◽  
Naoko Yoshida

Conventional aerobic treatment of swine wastewater, which generally contains 4500–8200 mg L−1 of organic matter, is energy-consuming. The aim of this study was to assess the application of scaled-up microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with different capacities (i.e., 1.5 L, 12 L, and 100 L) for removing organic matter from swine wastewater. The MFCs were single-chambered, consisting of an anode of microbially reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and an air-cathode of platinum-coated carbon cloth. The MFCs were polarized via an external resistance of 3–10 Ω for 40 days for the 1.5 L-MFC and 120 days for the 12L- and 100 L-MFC. The MFCs were operated in continuous flow mode (hydraulic retention time: 3–5 days). The 100 L-MFC achieved an average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency of 52%, which corresponded to a COD removal rate of 530 mg L−1 d−1. Moreover, the 100 L-MFC showed an average and maximum electricity generation of 0.6 and 2.2 Wh m−3, respectively. Our findings suggest that MFCs can effectively be used for swine wastewater treatment coupled with the simultaneous generation of electricity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (9) ◽  
pp. 1746-1754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milad Kadivarian ◽  
Ali A. Dadkhah ◽  
Mohsen Nasr Esfahany

Abstract While microbial fuel cells are being considered as a tool for energy saving in wastewater treatment facilities, such applications in oil refineries pose a challenge due to harder acclimation of microorganisms. In this research, the effect of heat pretreating mixed culture microorganisms (MCM), and cell cross section, on the performance of a novel cell design with two cross sections (single chamber microbial fuel cells, with circular: SCMFC_CC and rectangular: SCMFC_RC cross section) fed batched with refinery wastewater were investigated. First, using original and heat pretreated MCM, the performance of SCMFC_CC in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and electricity production was investigated. Then, using only the heat pretreated MCM, the electricity production of SCMFC_RC was measured and compared with that of SCMFC_CC. Heat pretreatment of MCM improved maximum open circuit voltage (OCV) and maximum power density generated by 14% and 16%, respectively. However, heat pretreatment reduced COD removal by about 4%. The performance of SCMFC_CC in terms of maximum OCV and power density compared to SCMFC_RC was improved by 41% and 279%, respectively. Heat treatment of MCM increases the electricity generation of the cell, while reducing the performance of COD reduction due to decreasing the microorganism varieties in the MCM.


2020 ◽  
Vol 202 ◽  
pp. 08007
Author(s):  
Wahyu Zuli Pratiwi ◽  
Hadiyanto Hadiyanto ◽  
Purwanto Purwanto ◽  
Muthi’ah Nur Fadlilah

Microalgae-Microbial Fuel Cells (MMFCs) are very popular to be used to treat organic waste. MMFCs can function as an energy-producing wastewater pre-treatment system. Wastewater can provide an adequate supply of nutrients, support the large capacity of biofuel production, and can be integrated with existing wastewater treatment infrastructure. The reduced content of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is one way to measure the efficiency of wastewater treatment. MMFCs reactors are made in the form of two chambers (anode and cathode) both of which are connected by a salt bridge. Tofu wastewater as an anode and Spirulina sp as a cathode. To improve MFCs performance which is to obtain maximum COD removal and electricity generation, nutrient NaHCO3 as the nutrient carbon source for Spirulina sp was varied. The system running phase on 12 days. The results were Spirulina sp treated with MFCs technology has better growth than non-MFCs. The MMFC generated a maximum power density of 21.728 mW/cm2 and achieved 57.37% COD removal. These results showed that the combined process was effective in treating tofu wastewater.


2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (7) ◽  
pp. 1509-1517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linan Zhu ◽  
Hailing He ◽  
Chunli Wang

The hybrid membrane bioreactor (HMBR) has been applied in ship domestic sewage treatment under high volumetric loading for ship space saving. The mechanism and influence factors on the efficiency, including hydraulic retention time (HRT), dissolved oxygen (DO) of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal were investigated. The HMBR's average COD removal rate was up to 95.13% on volumetric loading of 2.4 kgCOD/(m3•d) and the COD concentration in the effluent was 48.5 mg/L, far below the International Maritime Organization (IMO) discharge standard of 125 mg/L. DO had a more remarkable effect on the COD removal efficiency than HRT. In addition, HMBR revealed an excellent capability of resisting organics loading impact. Within the range of volumetric loading of 0.72 to 4.8 kg COD/(m3•d), the effluent COD concentration satisfied the discharge requirement of IMO. It was found that the organics degradation in the aeration tank followed the first-order reaction, with obtained kinetic parameters of vmax (2.79 d−1) and Ks (395 mg/L). The original finding of this study had shown the effectiveness of HMBR in organic contaminant degradation at high substrate concentration, which can be used as guidance in the full scale of the design, operation and maintenance of ship domestic sewage treatment devices.


Membranes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liping Fan ◽  
Junyi Shi ◽  
Yaobin Xi

Low power production and unstable power supply are important bottlenecks restricting the application of microbial fuel cells (MFCs). It is necessary to explore effective methods to improve MFC performance. By using molasses wastewater as fuel, carbon felt as an electrode, and the mixture of K3[Fe(CN)6] and NaCl as a catholyte, an MFC experimental system was set up to study the performance of MFCs with three different proton exchange membranes. A Nafion membrane was used as the basic material, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and acetone-modified PVDF were used to modify it, respectively. The experimental results show that a PVDF-modified membrane can improve the water absorption effectively and, thus, make the MFC have greater power generation and better wastewater treatment effect. The acetone-modified PVDF can further improve the stability of output power of the MFC. When the acetone-modified PVDF was used to modify the Nafion membrane, the steady output voltage of the MFC was above 0.21 V, and the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal rate for molasses wastewater was about 66.7%, which were 96.3% and 75.1% higher than that of the MFC with the ordinary Nafion membrane. Membrane modification with acetone-modified PVDF can not only increase the output voltage of the MFC but also improve the stability of its output electrical energy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaoqian Jing ◽  
Shiwei Cao

To enhance the biodegradability of residual organic pollutants in secondary effluent of wastewater treatment plants, UV photolysis and ozonation were used in combination as pretreatment before a biological aerating filter (BAF). The results indicated that UV photolysis could not remove much COD (chemical oxygen demand), and the performance of ozonation was better than the former. With UV photolysis combined with ozonation (UV/O3), COD removal was much higher than the sum of that with UV photolysis and ozonation alone, which indicated that UV photolysis could efficiently promote COD removal during ozonation. This pretreatment also improved molecular weight distribution (MWD) and biodegradability greatly. Proportion of organic compounds with molecular weight (MW) <3 kDalton was increased from 51.9% to 85.9%. COD removal rates with BAF and O3/BAF were only about 25% and 38%, respectively. When UV/O3oxidation was combined with BAF, the average COD removal rate reached above 61%, which was about 2.5 times of that with BAF alone. With influent COD ranging from 65 to 84 mg/L, the effluent COD was stably in the scope of 23–31 mg/L. The combination of UV/O3oxidation with BAF was quite efficient in organic pollutants removal for tertiary wastewater treatment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Xu ◽  
Yaqian Zhao ◽  
Tongyue Wang ◽  
Ranbin Liu ◽  
Fei Gao

To improve the sustainability of constructed wetlands (CWs), a novel tiered wetland system integrated with a microbial fuel cell (MFC) was developed in this study. Compared to the single stage CW, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was improved from 83.2% to 88.7%. More significantly, this tiered system significantly enhanced total nitrogen removal efficiency (an increase from 53.1% to 75.4%). In terms of MFC integration, a gradually decreased performance in electricity production was observed during its 3 months of operation (the voltage dropped from nearly 600 mV to less than 300 mV), which resulted in a reduction of power density from around 2 W/m3 to less than 0.5 W/m3. The deterioration in performance of the air-cathode is the main reason behind this, since the electrode potential of the cathode under open circuit reduced from 348.5 mV to 49.5 mV while the anode potential kept constant at around −400 mV. However, in spite of its electrical performance reduction, it was proved that MFC integration enhanced COD removal and the nitrification process. Further work is needed to improve the stability and feasibility of this new system.


2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujie Feng ◽  
Junfeng Liu ◽  
Limin Zhu ◽  
Jinzhi Wei

The clomazone herbicide wastewater was treated using a combined technology composed of electrochemical catalytic oxidation and biological contact degradation. A new type of electrochemical reactor was fabricated and a Ti/SnO2 electrode was chosen as the anode in electrochemical-oxidation reactor and stainless steel as the cathode. Ceramic rings loaded with SnO2 were used as three-dimensional electrodes forming a packed bed. The operation parameters that might influence the degradation of organic contaminants in the clomazone wastewater were optimized. When the cell voltage was set at 30 V and the volume of particle electrodes was designed as two-thirds of the volume of the total reactor bed, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rate could reach 82% after 120 min electrolysis, and the ratio of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)/COD of wastewater increased from 0.12 to 0.38. After 12 h degradation with biological contact oxidation, the total COD removal rate of the combined technology reached 95%, and effluent COD was below 120 mg/L. The results demonstrated that this electrocatalytic oxidation method can be used as a pretreatment for refractory organic wastewater before biological treatment.


Archaea ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuo Wang ◽  
Jianzheng Li ◽  
Guochen Zheng ◽  
Guocheng Du ◽  
Ji Li

Hydrogen-producing acetogens (HPA) have a transitional role in anaerobic wastewater treatment. Thus, bioaugmentation with HPA cultures can enhance the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency and CH4yield of anaerobic wastewater treatment. Cultures with high degradation capacities for propionic acid and butyric acid were obtained through continuous subculture in enrichment medium and were designated as Z08 and Z12. Bioaugmentation with Z08 and Z12 increased CH4production by glucose removal to 1.58. Bioaugmentation with Z08 and Z12 increased the COD removal rate in molasses wastewater from 71.60% to 85.84%. The specific H2and CH4yields from COD removal increased by factors of 1.54 and 1.63, respectively. Results show that bioaugmentation with HPA-dominated cultures can improve CH4production from COD removal. Furthermore, hydrogen-producing acetogenesis was identified as the rate-limiting step in anaerobic wastewater treatment.


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