scholarly journals A Review on Microbial Electrocatalysis Systems Coupled with Membrane Bioreactor to Improve Wastewater Treatment

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Zhao ◽  
Kakade ◽  
Kulshreshtha ◽  
Liu ◽  
...  

Microbial electrocatalysis is an electro reaction that uses microorganisms as a biocatalyst, mainly including microbial electrolytic cells (MEC) and microbial fuel cells (MFC), which has been used for wastewater treatment. However, the low processing efficiency is the main drawback for its practical application and the additional energy input of MEC system results in high costs. Recently, MFC/MEC coupled with other treatment processes, especially membrane bioreactors (MBR), has been used for high efficiency and low-cost wastewater treatment. In these systems, the wastewater treatment efficiency can be improved after two units are operated and the membrane fouling of MBR can also be alleviated by the electric energy that was generated in the MFC. In addition, the power output of MFC can also reduce the energy consumption of microbial electrocatalysis systems. This review summarizes the recent studies about microbial electrocatalysis systems coupled with MBR, describing the combination types and microorganism distribution, the advantages and limitations of the systems, and also addresses several suggestions for the future development and practical applications.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8421
Author(s):  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Jiandong Huang ◽  
Meng Li ◽  
Zhongran Dai ◽  
Rongli Jiang ◽  
...  

Uranium mining waste causes serious radiation-related health and environmental problems. This has encouraged efforts toward U(VI) removal with low cost and high efficiency. Typical uranium adsorbents, such as polymers, geopolymers, zeolites, and MOFs, and their associated high costs limit their practical applications. In this regard, this work found that the natural combusted coal gangue (CCG) could be a potential precursor of cheap sorbents to eliminate U(VI). The removal efficiency was modulated by chemical activation under acid and alkaline conditions, obtaining HCG (CCG activated with HCl) and KCG (CCG activated with KOH), respectively. The detailed structural analysis uncovered that those natural mineral substances, including quartz and kaolinite, were the main components in CCG and HCG. One of the key findings was that kalsilite formed in KCG under a mild synthetic condition can conspicuous enhance the affinity towards U(VI). The best equilibrium adsorption capacity with KCG was observed to be 140 mg/g under pH 6 within 120 min, following a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. To understand the improved adsorption performance, an adsorption mechanism was proposed by evaluating the pH of uranyl solutions, adsorbent dosage, as well as contact time. Combining with the structural analysis, this revealed that the uranyl adsorption process was mainly governed by chemisorption. This study gave rise to a utilization approach for CCG to obtain cost-effective adsorbents and paved a novel way towards eliminating uranium by a waste control by waste strategy.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1804
Author(s):  
Guangmin Ren ◽  
Hongtao Han ◽  
Yixuan Wang ◽  
Sitong Liu ◽  
Jianyong Zhao ◽  
...  

Photocatalysis holds great promise as an efficient and sustainable oxidation technology for application in wastewater treatment. Rapid progress developing novel materials has propelled photocatalysis to the forefront of sustainable wastewater treatments. This review presents the latest progress on applications of photocatalytic wastewater treatment. Our focus is on strategies for improving performance. Challenges and outlooks in this promising field are also discussed. We hope this review will help researchers design low-cost and high-efficiency photocatalysts for water treatment.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuancheng Qin ◽  
Qiang Peng

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to the possibility of low-cost conversion of photovoltaic energy. The DSSCs-based ruthenium complexes as sensitizers show high efficiency and excellent stability, implying potential practical applications. This review focuses on recent advances in design and preparation of efficient ruthenium sensitizers and their applications in DSSCs, including thiocyanate ruthenium sensitizers and thiocyanate-free ruthenium sensitizers.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shashikanth Gajaraj

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Much attention has been drawn by bioelectrochemical systems (BES) in the past years for wastewater treatment, due to its potential for enhanced wastewater treatment and resource recovery with added advantages in terms of energy generation, environmental footprint, operating stability and economics. This dissertation focuses on the potential to improve treatment efficiency of different wastewater components when assisted by BES. Modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE) process and membrane bioreactor (MBR) process assisted by microbial fuel cells (MFC) showed improved the nitrate-nitrogen removal efficiencies by upto 31% and 20% respectively, and reduced sludge produced by 11% and 6% respectively over the control reactors. While the unique design of the cathode significantly reduced physical membrane fouling, all other bioreactor performance was unaffected. Microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) assisted Cr[VI] reduction was faster in 60 days as compared to 69 days with MFC assisted systems and 85 days with the control. The total Cr removal efficiencies in the control system and the MFC or MEC-assisted systems were 20%, 55%, and 65%, respectively, demonstrating the ability of BES in assisting wastewater remediation process. Finally, MECs incorporated into anaerobic digestion resulted in increased production of methane of 9.4 % or 8.5% with both glucose and activated sludge respectively as the substrate. The integration of MEC had no impact on acetoclastic methanogens involved in anaerobic digestion, but significantly increased the populations of hydrogenotrophic methanogens, especially Methanobacteriales. In conclusion, the integration of BES with conventional wastewater treatment and sludge digestion process enhanced the removal of organic matter, nitrate and toxic metals while supporting healthy microbial consortia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1012 ◽  
pp. 158-163
Author(s):  
Oliveira Marilei de Fátima ◽  
Mazur Viviane Teleginski ◽  
Virtuozo Fernanda ◽  
Junior Valter Anzolin de Souza

Nowadays, humanity has become aware of the consequences that the use of fossil fuels entails, and the latest developments in the energy sector are leading to a diversification of energy resources. In this context, researching on alternative forms of producing electric energy is being conducted. At the transportation level, a possible solution for this matter may lie in hydrogen fuel cells. The electrolysis of water is one of the possible processes for hydrogen production, but the reaction to break the water molecule requires a great amount of energy and this is precisely the biggest issue involving this process. In this work, low cost electrodes of 254 stainless steel and electrolytic graphite were used for hydrogen production, allowing high efficiency and reduced oxidation during the process. The selection of these materials allows to obtain a high corrosion resistance electrolytic pair, by replacing the high cost platinum electrode usually employed in the alkaline electrolysis process. The formic acid of biomass origin was used as an electrolyte. It was observed that the developed reactor have no energy losses through heat and it was possible to obtain approximately 82% conversion efficiency in the gas production process.


2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.H. Ngo ◽  
M.C. Nguyen ◽  
N.G. Sangvikar ◽  
T.T.L. Hoang ◽  
W.S. Guo

Wastewater treatment and reuse is being emphasized due to the shortage of water sources and the continuous deterioration of the aquatic environment. In this study, a novel sponge bioreactor was studied as a low cost, high efficiency alternative for an attached growth biological system. This was designed by combining of number of sponge trays. This emerging technology has many beneficial properties in wastewater treatment and reuse. The approaches towards the conditions for system design were: (i) selection of sponge types; (ii) selection of sponge shapes; and (iii) selection of designated slope of sponge tray. They were determined through a series of experiments using a laboratory-scale unit with synthetic wastewater. It was then tested with a pilot-scale unit at the predetermined optimum conditions. The results indicate that the highest biomass growth was found at the sponge type with a cell count of 70–90 cells/in2 (6.45 cm2) The relationship between biomass growth and biological oxygen consumption was well established. The prism-shaped sponge (triangular polyurethane sponge of 70–90 cells/in2 with designated slope of sponge tray at 10 degrees) led to the best performance in terms of both organic and nutrient removal efficiency.


Biosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 280
Author(s):  
Mengzhu Wang ◽  
Peng Liu ◽  
Hengjia Zhu ◽  
Bangxiang Liu ◽  
Xiangheng Niu

Due to the great threat posed by excessive nitrite in food and drinking water to human health, it calls for developing reliable, convenient, and low-cost methods for nitrite detection. Herein, we string nanozyme catalysis and diazotization together and develop a ratiometric colorimetric approach for sensing nitrite in food. First, hollow MnFeO (a mixture of Mn and Fe oxides with different oxidation states) derived from a Mn-Fe Prussian blue analogue is explored as an oxidase mimic with high efficiency in catalyzing the colorless 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) oxidation to blue TMBox, presenting a notable signal at 652 nm. Then, nitrite is able to trigger the diazotization of the product TMBox, not only decreasing the signal at 652 nm but also producing a new signal at 445 nm. Thus, the analyte-induced reverse changes of the two signals enable us to establish a ratiometric colorimetric assay for nitrite analysis. According to the above strategy, facile determination of nitrite in the range of 3.3–133.3 μM with good specificity was realized, providing a detection limit down to 0.2 μM. Compared with conventional single-signal analysis, our dual-signal ratiometric colorimetric mode was demonstrated to offer higher sensitivity, a lower detection limit, and better anti-interference ability against external detection environments. Practical applications of the approach in examining nitrite in food matrices were also verified.


Author(s):  
Sihao Wang ◽  
Gaofu Li ◽  
Lei Chen ◽  
Zhi Li ◽  
Zhuoyan Wu ◽  
...  

The development of low-cost and high-efficiency catalysts is very important to promote carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR). Metal phosphides (MPs) are promising catalysts for CO2 reduction because of their excellent electrical conductivity, good stability, high activity and selectivity. In this review, we summarize the latest progress of MPs in CO2RR from chemocatalysis, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis, and discuss in detail their advantages and catalytic mechanism. In the end, we provide some potential challenges and inspiring outlooks to serve as guidance for future research and practical applications of MPs in catalytic CO2 reduction.


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