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The paper discusses the challenges and advances in membranes for bioelectrochemical systems, particularly in wastewater treatment, highlighting the need for improved membrane performance and durability.

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Abstract

Increasing energy demand has been a big challenge for current society, as the fossil fuel sources are gradually decreasing. Hence, development of renewable and sustainable energy sources for the future is considered one of the top priorities in national strategic plans. Bioenergy can meet future energy requirements - renewability, sustainability, and even carbon-neutrality. Bioenergy production from wastes and wastewaters is especially attractive because of dual benefits of energy generation and contaminant stabilization. There are several bioenergy technologies using wastes and wastewaters as electron donor, which include anaerobic digestion, dark biohydrogen fermentation, biohydrogen production using photosynthetic microorganisms, and bioelectrochemical systems (BESs). Among them BES seems to be very promising as we can produce a variety of value-added products from wastes and wastewaters, such as electric power, hydrogen gas, hydrogen peroxide, acetate, ethanol etc. Most ofthe traditional BES uses a membrane to separate the anode and cathode chamber, which is essential for improving microbial metabolism on the anode and the recovery of value-added products on the cathode. Performance of BES lacking a membrane can be seriously deteriorated, due to oxygen diffusion or substantial loss of synthesized products. For this reason, usage of a membrane seems essential to facilitate BES performance. However, a membrane can bring several technical challenges to BES application compared to membrane-less BES. These challenges include poor proton permeability, substrate loss, oxygen back diffusion, pH gradient, internal resistance, biofouling, etc. This paper aims to review the major technical barriers associated with membranes and future research directions for their application in BESs.

Key findings

  • Bioelectrochemical systems using membranes can efficiently remove contaminants from wastewater
  • Current membrane materials and designs have limitations in terms of stability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness
  • Research is focused on developing novel membrane materials and configurations to overcome these challenges

Keywords

BiohydrogenMicrobial fuel cellBioenergyRenewable energyWaste managementEnergy source

Identifiers

DOI
10.1080/09593330.2013.822007
PubMed
24350432
Journal
Environmental Technology
Year
2013