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Urine in Bioelectrochemical Systems: An Overall Review
Author(s) -
Santoro Carlo,
Garcia Maria Jose Salar,
Walter Xavier Alexis,
You Jiseon,
Theodosiou Pavlina,
Gajda Iwona,
Obata Oluwatosin,
Winfield Jonathan,
Greenman John,
Ieropoulos Ioannis
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemelectrochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.182
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 2196-0216
DOI - 10.1002/celc.201901995
Subject(s) - microbial fuel cell , urine , electrolyte , environmental science , chemistry , environmental chemistry , electrode , biochemistry , anode
In recent years, human urine has been successfully used as an electrolyte and organic substrate in bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) mainly due of its unique properties. Urine contains organic compounds that can be utilised as a fuel for energy recovery in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and it has high nutrient concentrations including nitrogen and phosphorous that can be concentrated and recovered in microbial electrosynthesis cells and microbial concentration cells. Moreover, human urine has high solution conductivity, which reduces the ohmic losses of these systems, improving BES output. This review describes the most recent advances in BESs utilising urine. Properties of neat human urine used in state‐of‐the‐art MFCs are described from basic to pilot‐scale and real implementation. Utilisation of urine in other bioelectrochemical systems for nutrient recovery is also discussed including proofs of concept to scale up systems.