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Successive Conditioning in Complex Artificial Wastewater Increases the Performance of Electrochemically Active Biofilms Treating Real Wastewater
Author(s) -
Riedl Sebastian,
Brown Robert Keith,
Klöckner Sarah,
Huber Katharina J.,
Bunk Boyke,
Overmann Jörg,
Schröder Uwe
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chemelectrochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.182
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 2196-0216
DOI - 10.1002/celc.201700929
Subject(s) - wastewater , effluent , biofilm , chemical oxygen demand , pulp and paper industry , sewage treatment , microorganism , settling , substrate (aquarium) , carbon source , environmental science , chemistry , waste management , environmental engineering , bacteria , biology , engineering , ecology , biochemistry , genetics
This study focuses on improving the treatment capacity and current output of electrochemically active microorganisms (EAM) during real wastewater treatment. A multi‐carbon‐source artificial wastewater consisting of several carbon sources, which represent typical fermentation and hydrolysis products derived from the otherwise myriad wastewater constituents, was developed as a more realistic simulation thereof. An electrochemically preselected inoculum was obtained by means of re‐suspension of a well‐established EAM biofilm, which was subsequently used to inoculate sterile electrodes. Repeating this procedure yielded increasingly enriched and conditioned biofilms with improved performance. After cultivation in the complex artificial medium, highly efficient fourth generation EAM biofilms were fed real wastewater (i. e. effluent after primary settling) and outperformed those cultivated using a single substrate (i. e. acetate) in terms of current output and chemical oxygen demand (COD) degradation rates.