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Continuous flow, large‐scale, microbial fuel cell system for the sustained treatment of swine waste
Author(s) -
Babanova Sofia,
Jones Jason,
Phadke Sujal,
Lu Mengqian,
Angulo Carlo,
Garcia Jaime,
Carpenter Kayla,
Cortese Rachel,
Chen Shing,
Phan Tony,
Bretschger Orianna
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
water environment research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1554-7531
pISSN - 1061-4303
DOI - 10.1002/wer.1183
Subject(s) - microbial fuel cell , chemical oxygen demand , wastewater , hydraulic retention time , sewage treatment , environmental science , cogeneration , residence time (fluid dynamics) , waste management , biochemical oxygen demand , energy recovery , chemical energy , pulp and paper industry , environmental engineering , electricity generation , chemistry , engineering , energy (signal processing) , mathematics , power (physics) , statistics , physics , geotechnical engineering , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have long held the promise of being a cost‐effective technology for the energy‐neutral treatment of wastewater. However, successful pilot‐scale demonstrations for this technology are still limited to very few. Here, we present a large‐scale MFC system, composed of 12 MFCs with a total volume of 110 L, successfully treating swine wastewater at a small educational farm. The system was operated for over 200 days in continuous mode with hydraulic residence time of 4 hr. Very stable electrochemical and waste treatment performance was observed with up to 65% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removed and a maximum treatment rate of 5.0 kg COD/m 3 .day. Robust microbial enrichment was performed and adapted to metabolize and transform a diversity of compounds present. The Net Energy Recovery (NER = 0.11 kWhr/kg COD) is not only competitive with conventional cogeneration processes, but is in fact sufficient to sustain the operational energy requirements of the system. Practitioner points This study demonstrates the design and operation of a large‐scale microbial fuel cells (MFC) system for continuous treatment of swine wastewater. The system achieved a high chemical oxygen demand removal rate within a short hydraulic residence time. This study moves one‐step closer to applying MFC technology for real wastewater treatment.