Microbial fuel cells used in wastewater treatment

Abstract

Environmental issues associated with water sanitation are not confined to developing countries alone but are the most basic human and environmental necessities all over the world. Wastewater sources are major causes for environmental pollution in surface and ground water bodies. Current wastewater treatment technologies are not sustainable to meet the ever growing water sanitation needs due to rapid industrialization and population growth, simply because they are energy and cost intensive leaving latitude for development of technologies that are energy conservative or energy yielding. For the present and future context, microbial fuel cells technology may present a sustainable and an environmentally friendly route to meet the water sanitation needs. Microbial fuel cell based wastewater systems employ bio-electrochemical catalytic activity of microbes to produce electricity from the oxidation of organic, and in some cases inorganic, substrates present in urban sewage, agricultural, dairy, food and industrial wastewaters. It provides an overview of current energy needs for wastewater treatment and potential energy recovery options followed by a comprehensive review of the principles of wastewater treatment, substrate utilization (organic removal), recent process developments, nutrient and metal removal capacities in microbial fuel cells. Several issues related to process performance, organic removal capacities and potential environmental impacts were discussed in detail