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Microbial fuel cells (MFC) are emerging as a versatile eco-friendly bioelectrochemical system that utilizes microorganisms to convert chemical energy into bioelectricity and treat wastewater.

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Representative MFC — matched on the paper’s system type only, not its reactor or geometry.

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What they did

System
MFC

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Abstract

Microbial fuel cells (MFC) are emerging as a versatile eco-friendly bioelectrochemical system (BES) that utilizes microorganisms as biocatalysts to simultaneously convert chemical energy in the chemical bond of organic and inorganic substrates into bioelectricity and treat wastewater. The performance of MFC depends on the electroactive microorganisms, popularly known as exoelectrogens, the loading rate of organic substrate, pH, MFC configurations, hydraulic retention time, and temperature. In most cases, the performance of MFC can be evaluated by measuring chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency, Coulombic efficiency and MFC power density output. To date, the most common MFC’s reactor designs are single-chamber MFC, double-chambers MFC, and stacked-MFC configurations. Generally, considerable developments in MFC systems for waste treatment, renewable energy generation and resource recovery have been made in the last two decades, despite critical challenges of capital cost investment, and low efficiency for large scale applications are impeding MFC from commercialization. This mini-review chapter provides a comprehensive assessment of principles and configurations of MFC, treatment of domestic wastewater, energy generation, and resource recovery by MFC and challenges of MFC. I believe the information provided in this chapter will enlighten the current and future prospects of versatile applications of MFC during domestic wastewater treatment.

Key findings

  • MFC performance depends on electroactive microorganisms, organic substrate loading rate, pH, MFC configurations, hydraulic retention time, and temperature.
  • Common MFC reactor designs include single-chamber, double-chamber, and stacked-MFC configurations.
  • Considerable developments in MFC systems for waste treatment, renewable energy generation, and resource recovery have been made in the last two decades.

Keywords

Microbial fuel cellWastewaterChemical oxygen demandFaraday efficiencyRenewable energyChemical energy

Identifiers

DOI
10.5772/intechopen.100826
Journal
Sewage - Recent Advances, New Perspectives and Applications
Year
2022