Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 18
Microbial Fuel Cells for Wastewater
Treatment
Cuijie Feng, Subed Chandra Dev Sharma and Chang-Ping Yu
Abstract Microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which are the bioelectrochemical systems,
have been developed rapidly over the past few decades and are considered as a
promising technique to obtain renewable resources from wastewater. MFCs can be
used to harness electricity from microorganisms during wastewater treatment. This
chapter reviews recent literature on MFCs for wastewater treatment. We first
introduce the concept of MFCs and summarize the materials and design of MFCs
afterward. It shows that through innovative materials and design, the current
density of MFCs has been greatly improved during the last decade. Microorgan-
isms play a major role in the electricity production of MFCs and therefore, an
in-depth discussion of the microbiology of MFCs was also included in this chapter.
Extensive studies on exoelectrogenic bacteria and consortia are beginning to
expose the mechanistic and ecological complexities of MFC biofilm communities.
Yet, our understanding of electrochemically active microbes is still in its infancy,
as the diverse communities have a multitude of undiscovered populations in dif-
ferent MFC applications. Further study is warranted to optimize design, materials,
and microbiology to improve electricity recovery from MFCs.
18.1 Introduction
Wastewater treatment currently consumes substantial energy about 15 GW
(McCarty et al. 2011 ), or accounts for approximately 3 % of the U.S. electrical
energy load (EPA Office of Water 2006 ), and has similar level to that in other
developed countries (Curtis 2010 ). However, there is abundant potential energy of
approximately
17 GW
of
power
(1.5 9 1011 kWh)
contained
in
domestic,
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