Efficient removal of nitrobenzene and concomitant electricity production by single-chamber microbial fuel cells with activated carbon air-cathode

Enren Zhang^a,*, Feng Wang^a, Wenjing Zhai^a, Keith Scott^b, Xu Wang^c, Guowang Diao^a

a School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou City 225002, China

b School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, United Kingdom

c School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China

*Corresponding author. Email: babyphotomail@qq.com, erzhang@yzu.edu.cn (E. Zhang)

Abstract

Single-chamber microbial fuel cells (S-MFCs) with bio-anodes and activated carbon (AC) air-cathodes showed high nitrobenzene (NB) tolerance and NB removal with concomitant electricity production. The maximum power over 25 W m^-3could be obtained when S-MFCs were operated in the NB loading range of 1.2–6.2 mol m^-3d^-1, and stable electricity production over 13.7 W m^-3could be produced in a NB loading range of 1.2–14.7 mol m^-3d^-1. The present S-MFCs exhibited high NB removal performance with NB removal efficiency over 97% even when the NB loading rate was increased to 17.2 mol m^-3d^-1. The potential NB reduced product (i.e. aniline) could also be effectively removed from influents. The findings in this study means that single-chamber MFCs assembled with pre-enriched bio-anodes and AC air cathodes could be developed as effective bio-electrochemical systems to remove NB from wastewaters and to harvest energy instead of consuming energy.

Bioresource Technology 229 (2017) 111-118. IF= 5.651

文章链接:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2017.01.009