Coupling microbial fuel cells with a membrane photobioreactor for wastewater treatment and bioenergy production

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• 作者：Hei Tsun Tse ; Shuai Luo ; Jian Li ; Zhen He
• 关键词：Microbial fuel cell ; Membrane photobioreactor ; Algae separation ; Bioelectricity ; Wastewater treatment
• 刊名：Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：39
• 期：11
• 页码：1703-1710
• 全文大小：903 KB
• 刊物类别：Chemistry and Materials Science
• 刊物主题：Chemistry
  Biotechnology
  Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
  Industrial and Production Engineering
  Waste Management and Waste Technology
  Waste Water Technology, Water Pollution Control, Water Management and Aquatic Pollution
  Food Science
  
• 出版者：Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
• ISSN：1615-7605
• 卷排序：39

文摘

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and membrane photobioreactors are two emerging technologies for simultaneous wastewater treatment and bioenergy production. In this study, those two technologies were coupled to form an integrated treatment system, whose performance was examined under different operating conditions. The coupled system could achieve 92–97 % removal of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) and nearly 100 % removal of ammonia. Extending the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the membrane photobioreactor to 3.0 days improved the production of algal biomass from 44.4 ± 23.8 to 133.7 ± 12.9 mg L−1 (based on the volume of the treated water). When the MFCs were operated in a loop mode, their effluent (which was the influent to the algal reactor) contained nitrate and had a high pH, leading to the decreased algal production in the membrane photobioreactor. Energy analysis showed that the energy consumption was mainly due to the recirculation of the anolyte and the catholyte in the MFCs and that decreasing the recirculation rates could significantly reduce energy consumption. The energy production was dominated by indirect electricity generation from algal biomass. The highest energy production of 0.205 kWh m−3 was obtained with the highest algal biomass production, resulting in a theoretically positive energy balance of 0.033 kWh m−3. Those results have demonstrated that the coupled system could be an alternative approach for energy-efficient wastewater treatment and using wastewater effluent for algal production.