Discover insights from thousands of peer-reviewed papers on microbial electrochemical systems
Anamika Singh, Virendra Kumar Yadav, Rajendra Singh Chundawat et al.
Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology · 2023
· 0
· 0
In the context of climate change and the circular economy, biochar has recently found many applications in various sectors as a versatile and recycled material. Here, we review application of biochar-based for carbon sink, covering agronomy, animal farming, anaerobic digestion, composting, environmental remediation, construction, and energy storage. The ultimate storage reservoirs for biochar are soils, civil infrastructure, and landfills. Biochar-based fertilisers, which combine traditional fertilisers with biochar as a nutrient carrier, are promising in agronomy. The use of biochar as a feed additive for animals shows benefits in terms of animal growth, gut microbiota, reduced enteric methane production, egg yield, and endo-toxicant mitigation. Biochar enhances anaerobic digestion operations, primarily for biogas generation and upgrading, performance and sustainability, and the mitigation of inhibitory impurities. In composts, biochar controls the release of greenhouse gases and enhances microbial activity. Co-composted biochar improves soil properties and enhances crop productivity. Pristine and engineered biochar can also be employed for water and soil remediation to remove pollutants. In construction, biochar can be added to cement or asphalt, thus conferring structural and functional advantages. Incorporating biochar in biocomposites improves insulation, electromagnetic radiation protection and moisture control. Finally, synthesising biochar-based materials for energy storage applications requires additional functionalisation.
Jagpreet Singh, Tanushree Dutta, Ki‐Hyun Kim et al.
Journal of Nanobiotechnology · 2018
Heavy metal pollution has become a serious concern across the globe due to their persistent nature, higher toxicity, and recalcitrance. These toxic metals threaten the stability of the environment and the health of all living beings. Heavy metals also enter the human food chain by eating contaminated foods and cause toxic effects on human health. Thus, remediation of HMs polluted soils is mandatory and it needs to be addressed at higher priority. The use of microbes is considered as a promising approach to combat the adverse impacts of HMs. Microbes aided in the restoration of deteriorated environments to their natural condition, with long-term environmental effects. Microbial remediation prevents the leaching and mobilization of HMs and they also make the extraction of HMs simple. Therefore, in this context recent technological advancement allowed to use of bioremediation as an imperative approach to remediate polluted soils. Microbes use different mechanisms including bio-sorption, bioaccumulation, bioleaching, bio-transformation, bio-volatilization and bio-mineralization to mitigate toxic the effects of HMs. Thus, keeping in the view toxic HMs here in this review explores the role of bacteria, fungi and algae in bioremediation of polluted soils. This review also discusses the various approaches that can be used to improve the efficiency of microbes to remediate HMs polluted soils. It also highlights different research gaps that must be solved in future study programs to improve bioremediation efficency.
Aisha Umar, Mustansar Mubeen, Iftikhar Ali et al.
Frontiers in Microbiology · 2024
Integrating fungi into fuel cell systems presents a promising opportunity to address environmental pollution while simultaneously generating energy. This review explores the innovative concept of constructing wetlands as fuel cells for pollutant degradation, offering a practical and eco-friendly solution to pollution challenges. Fungi possess unique capabilities in producing power, fuel, and electricity through metabolic processes, drawing significant interest for applications in remediation and degradation. Limited data exist on fungi's ability to generate electricity during catalytic reactions involving various enzymes, especially while remediating pollutants. Certain species, such as Trametes versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum, Galactomyces reessii, Aspergillus spp., Kluyveromyce smarxianus , and Hansenula anomala , have been reported to generate electricity at 1200 mW/m 3 , 207 mW/m 2 , 1,163 mW/m 3 , 438 mW/m 3 , 850,000 mW/m 3 , and 2,900 mW/m 3 , respectively. Despite the eco-friendly potential compared to conventional methods, fungi's role remains largely unexplored. This review delves into fungi's exceptional potential as fuel cell catalysts, serving as anodic or cathodic agents to mitigate land, air, and water pollutants while simultaneously producing fuel and power. Applications cover a wide range of tasks, and the innovative concept of wetlands designed as fuel cells for pollutant degradation is discussed. Cost-effectiveness may vary depending on specific contexts and applications. Fungal fuel cells (FFCs) offer a versatile and innovative solution to global challenges, addressing the increasing demand for alternative bioenergy production amid population growth and expanding industrial activities. The mechanistic approach of fungal enzymes via microbial combinations and electrochemical fungal systems facilitates the oxidation of organic substrates, oxygen reduction, and ion exchange membrane orchestration of essential reactions. Fungal laccase plays a crucial role in pollutant removal and monitoring environmental contaminants. Fungal consortiums show remarkable potential in fine-tuning FFC performance, impacting both power generation and pollutant degradation. Beyond energy generation, fungal cells effectively remove pollutants. Overall, FFCs present a promising avenue to address energy needs and mitigate pollutants simultaneously.
Manikant Tripathi, Pankaj Singh, Pankaj Singh et al.
Frontiers in Microbiology · 2023
· 0
Jörg S. Deutzmann, Bernhard Schink
Applied and Environmental Microbiology · 2011
Xiaolu Liu, Yang Li, Zhongshan Chen et al.
Eco-Environment & Health · 2023
Covalent organic frameworks are a class of extended crystalline organic materials that possess unique architectures with high surface areas and tuneable pore sizes. Since the first discovery of the topological frameworks in 2005, COFs have been applied as promising materials in diverse areas such as separation and purification, sensing or catalysis. Considering the need for renewable and clean energy production, many research efforts have recently focused on the application of porous materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion. In this respect, considerable efforts have been devoted to the design and synthesis of COF-based materials for electrochemical applications, including electrodes and membranes for fuel cells, supercapacitors and batteries. This review article highlights the design principles and strategies for the synthesis of COFs with a special focus on their potential for electrochemical applications. Recently suggested hybrid COF materials or COFs with hierarchical porosity will be discussed, which can alleviate the most challenging drawback of COFs for these applications. Finally, the major challenges and future trends of COF materials in electrochemical applications are outlined.
Aurora Roth, Fiamma Straneo, James Holte et al.
Earth system science data · 2025
Diana Pocaznoi
JPRAS Open · 2012
Wen‐Wei Li, Han‐Qing Yu, Zhen He
Energy & Environmental Science · 2013
· 0
Tahseena Naaz, Ankit Kumar, Anusha Vempaty et al.
Environmental Engineering Research · 2023
· 0
· 0
Carlo Santoro, Catia Arbizzani, Benjamin Erable et al.
Journal of Power Sources · 2017
Line Schultz Jensen, Christian Kaul, Nilas Brinck Juncker et al.
Energies · 2022
· 0
Philipp Kuntke, Tom Sleutels, Mariana Rodríguez Arredondo et al.
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology · 2018
Yiping Zuo, Jiajia Guo, Ning Gao et al.
arXiv (Cornell University) · 2023
· 0
· 0
Huawei Zhu, Liru Xu, Guodong Luan et al.
Nature Communications · 2022
· 0
Ruoyu Wang, Shihong Lin
Environmental Science & Technology · 2024
· 0
· 0
Dana Akhmetzhanova, Aitugan Sabitov, Yerlan Doszhanov et al.
Sustainability · 2025
Laura T. Wey, Evan Indigo Wroe, Viktor Sadilek et al.
Electrochimica Acta · 2024
Bioelectrochemical approaches for energy conversion rely on efficient wiring of natural electron transport chains to electrodes. However, state-of-the-art exogenous electron mediators give rise to significant energy losses and, in the case of living systems, long-term cytotoxicity. Here, we explored new selection criteria for exogenous electron mediation by examining phenazines as novel low-midpoint potential molecules for wiring the photosynthetic electron transport chain of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 to electrodes. We identified pyocyanin (PYO) as an effective cell-permeable phenazine that can harvest electrons from highly reducing points of photosynthesis. PYO-mediated photocurrents were observed to be 4-fold higher than mediator-free systems with an energetic gain of 200 mV compared to the common high-midpoint potential mediator 2,6-dichloro-1,4-benzoquinone (DCBQ). The low-midpoint potential of PYO led to O 2 reduction side-reactions, which competed significantly against photocurrent generation; the tuning of mediator concentration was important for outcompeting the side-reactions whilst avoiding acute cytotoxicity. DCBQ-mediated photocurrents were generally much higher but also decayed rapidly and were non-recoverable with fresh mediator addition. This suggests that the cells can acquire DCBQ-resistance over time. In contrast, PYO gave rise to steadier current enhancement despite the co-generation of undesirable reactive oxygen species, and PYO-exposed cells did not develop acquired resistance. Moreover, we demonstrated that the cyanobacteria can be genetically engineered to produce PYO endogenously to improve long-term prospects. Overall, this study established that energetic gains can be achieved via the use of low-potential phenazines in photosynthetic bioelectrochemical systems, and quantifies the factors and trade-offs that determine efficacious mediation in living bioelectrochemical systems.
· 0
· 0
· 0
Pau Batlle‐Vilanova, Sebastià Puig, Rafael Gonzalez‐Olmos et al.
RSC Advances · 2015
This study describes the electron transfer mechanism of a BES fed with the effluent from water scrubbing to improve biogas upgrading.
· 0
Bioresource technology · 2026
H. Zou, L. Chu, Yan Wang
Archives of Environmental Protection · 2023
Azo dye wastewater treatment is urgent necessary nowadays. Electrochemical technologies commonly enable more effi cient degradation of recalcitrant organic contaminants than biological methods, but those rely greatly on the energy consumption. A novel process of biofi lm coupled with electrolysis, i.e., bioelectrochemical system (BES), for methyl orange (MO) dye wastewater treatment was proposed and optimization of main infl uence factors was performed in this study. The results showed that BES had a positive effect on enhancement of color removal of MO wastewater and 81.9% of color removal effi ciency was achieved at the optimum process parameters: applied voltage of 2.0 V, initial MO concentration of 20 mg/L, glucose loads of 0.5 g/L and pH of 8.0 when the hydraulic retention time (HRT) was maintained at 3 d, displaying an excellent color removal performance. Importantly, a wide range of effective pH, ranging from 6 to 9, was found, thus greatly favoring the practical application of BES described here. The absence of a peak at 463 nm showed that the azo bond of MO was almost completely cleaved after degradation in BES. From these results, the proposed method of biodegradation combined with electrochemical technique can be an effective technology for dye wastewater treatment and may hopefully be also applied for treatment of other recalcitrant compounds in water and wastewater. Azo dye wastewater treatment in a novel process of biofi lm coupled with electrolysis 39 wastewater by using BES in this study. In the BES designed here, a stainless steel column was used as the cathode, where an activated carbon fi ber (ACF) was attached to the surface of cathode to enrich microorganisms. The performance of BES was assessed in terms of color removal effi ciency of MO. The effect of applied voltage, MO concentration, carbon source content and pH on MO denitrifi cation rate was investigated to optimize the operation on BES. Moreover, to investigate the change of molecular and structural characteristics during the MO treatment, UV/Visible absorption spectra with reaction time was further analyzed. These results obtained from this study, BES linking biological with electrochemical process, may serve as a new suggestion for the treatment of dye wastewaters or non-biodegradable industrial wastewaters. Material and methods Experimental setup The BES was made from polyvinyl chloride with a single-chamber cylinder and Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of BES adopted in this study. The BES had a total and working volume of 4.0 L and 3.0 L respectively with an internal diameter of 16 cm and 20 cm in height. The BES consisted of an ACF (Shanghai Zhaokuo, Co., Ltd, China) wrapped around the stainless steel column (6 cm internal diameter × 12 cm height × 0.15 cm wall thickness) as the cathode electrode and a high-purity graphite rod (2 cm diameter × 13 cm length) as the anode electrode. An adjustable direct current regulated power supply (PS-305DM; Dongguan Longwei Electronic Technology, Co., Ltd, China) was connected with anode and cathode to provide voltage. Besides, an automatic stirrer (OS20; Beijing Dragon Laboratory Instruments Limited, China) was installed at the top of the BES to provide well-mixed environment. Experimental design After construction, the experiments were carried out for 167 days. Activated sludge (1 L, 1 g/L of MLSS), i.e., seed sludge, was collected from an oxidation ditch confi guration (Fengyang Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant, Anhui, China) and immediately washed three times using deionized water to remove soluble carbon sources. And then, it was inoculated in the BES reactor to accelerate the biofi lm development onto the surface of ACF cathode, including three stages: fi rstly, from day 0 to day 20, a single synthetic wastewater was fed to the BES to promote the rapid growth of microorganisms; secondly, after that, a 1:1 (vol/vol) mixture of synthetic wastewater and azo dyes wastewater containing 30 mg/L MO was fed for 15 days to gradually enrich the specifi c microorganisms; fi nally, from day 36, it was intensively enriched by feeding the only MO wastewater for 30 days. In order to investigate the effect of process parameters on MO color removal in BES, the applied voltage, MO concentration, carbon source content and pH were gradually increased respectively (see Table 1) after biofi lm formation. During the experimental period, the hydraulic retention time (HRT) was maintained at 3 d according to the preliminary test. The synthetic wastewater consisted of organic carbon, nutrients and buffer solution and its composition is as follows: 40 mg/L KH2PO4, 40 mg/L (NH4)2SO4, 3 mg/L CaCl2, 45 mg/L MgSO4∙7H2O and 1 mL/L of nutrient solution (1200 mg/L FeCl3∙6H2O, 130 mg/L H3BO3, 25 mg/L CuSO4∙5H2O, 160 mg/L KI, 100 mg/L MnCl2∙4H2O, 50 mg/L Na2MoO4∙2H2O, 110 mg/L ZnSO4∙7H2O, 130 mg/L CoCl2∙6H2O and 800 mg/L EDTA). In addition, glucose and MO were added into the synthetic wastewater according to the experimental arrangement, which was used as the carbon source. The other compositions acted as nutrient and buffer solution for microbial growth. Analytical methods Samples of effl uents were fi ltered through a 0.22 μm-pore-size syringe fi lter prior to analysis. MLSS analysis was performed according to the standard methods (APHA, 2005). pH was measured by a pH meter analyzer (S20, Mettler-Toledo, Switzerland). Absorbance was analyzed by measuring the adsorption at 463 nm using an UV-3600 (Shimadzu, Japan). Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of BES 40 H. Zou, L. Chu, Y. Wang Results and discussion Effect of applied voltage on color removal The performance of color removal in BES at different applied voltages (HRT: 3 d; applied voltage: 0, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.4, 1.8, 2.2, 2.5 and 3.0) are shown in Figure 2. MO concentration of infl uent was maintained at 20 mg/L. It is clearly observed from Figure 2 that color removal effi ciency increased with the increasing voltage applied from 0 V to 2.5 V, displaying the promoting effect of applied voltage on color removal. The BES is totally related to the current density and it was enhanced with the increasing voltage applied, providing suitable conditions for microorganism on the biofi lm and electrochemical reaction (Chen et al. 2015). The highest color removal effi ciency (80.5%) was observed in BES at an applied voltage of 2.5 V. The reason might be that the presence of current density was more conductive to the bacteria growth and electrochemical reaction. At 3.0 V, it was declined to 77.2%. This can be due to the fact that high concentrations of intermediate products would be formed in solution at an excessive applied voltage. There exists an inevitable comparison for electron between the further degradation of intermediate products and the rupture of –N=N– at the cathode’s surface (Liu et al. 2015), leading to the decline in current effi ciency. Notably, the color removal effi ciency was 68.9% at 1.8 V signifi cantly higher than that at 1.4 V (53.5%) in BES. This may be attributed to the oxidative electrolysis of water and reduction of protons (Thrash and Coates 2008), thus producing more oxygen at anode and hydrogen at cathode, which were utilized by microorganisms as electron acceptor and electron. Table 1. Experimental design used here Process parameters Set value Applied voltage 0, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.4, 1.8, 2.2, 2.5 and 3.0 V MO concentration 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 mg/L Carbon source content 0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 g/L pH 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 Fig. 2. Color removal effi ciency at different applied voltages in BES Fig. 3. Color removal effi ciency with different dye concentration of infl uent in BES As the BES was controlled under no electric fi led, i.e., applied voltage of 0 V, exhibiting only a typical biological reaction, the color removal effi ciency was rather low (21.2%). Dye wastewater is well known to be of low biodegradability, which was hard to be treated by using only a single biological treatment method. And then, it was sharply increased up to 36.8% at 0.6 V, suggesting that micro-current fl owing through the biofi lm on the cathodic surface had positive effect on the microbial metabolism due to the electric fi eld stimulation. Effect of dye concentration on color removal The effects of different MO concentration of infl uent (5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 mg/L) on color removal performance are shown in Figure 3. During the treatment process, BES was operated at the same condition (HRT: 3 d; applied voltage: 2.0 V). Color removal effi ciency gradually decreased from 90.2% to 42.8% with the increase of initial MO concentration ranging from 5 mg/L to 100 mg/L, displaying a negative effect of initial dye loading on BES, which may be most likely due to the toxicity of the dye metabolites (such as aromatic amines) produced during dye reduction at high dye concentrations (Pearce et al. 2003). Similar results were also found in a report (Sponza and Işik 2005) that increase in Direct Black 38 concentration caused a decrease in color removal effi ciency in an anaerobic/aerobic sequential reactor responsible for dye wastewater treatment. These results suggested that the biomass inhibition effect could occur in BES when the dye concentration exceeded a proper range. Effect of carbon source content on color removal Figure 4 shows the effect of different carbon source content (0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 g/L), glucose used here, on the color removal performance in BES. The other operation conditions were listed as follows: HRT=3 d, applied voltage=2.0 V, initial MO concentration=20 mg/L. It was observed that glucose displayed an obvious promotion on color removal effi ciency in BES. The color removal effi ciency was only 36.2% without addition of carbon source and it increased signifi cantly up to 59.5% with the addition of 0.1 mg/L of glucose. This result was consistent with other studies (Al-Amrani et al. 2013, Murali et al. 2013), where co-subs
Kuleshova T.E., Panova G.G., Gall N.R. et al.
Technical Physics Letters · 2022
The experimental bioelectrochemical current source based on the concentration gradient of charge carriers in the root environment of plants has been created. A potential difference of about 70 mV is observed in the nutrient solution. It is gradually decreasing due to equalization of concentrations. The voltage increases to 200 mV when plant are placed in a cultivation system as the root system develops due to the intensification of diffusion processes. The potential-forming role of nitrate forms of nitrogen is shown on the example of lettuce grown according to the panoponics technology. The separation of electrical charges by the root system during the life of plants can become an alternative source of green energy. Keywords: rhizosphere, bioelectric potential, panoponics, green energy.
Junfeng Wei, Peng Liang, Xia Huang
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology · 2011
Comprehensive review of recent advances in MFC technology including electrode materials and reactor designs.