Microbial fuel cells for waste nutrients minimization: Recent process technologies and inputs of electrochemical active microbial system

Abstract

Still, in the current period, non-renewable energy sources have contributed to fulfill the current energy requirement and it causes the deficit of available stocks with emission of pollutant byproducts components. In recent years, efforts were made to harness the sustainable/ renewable fuels from renewable sources/ waste, complex organic matters including biomass at global level. Researchers have put attention on harnessing energy from wastewater and MFCs systems. This MFC approach utilizes the wastewater as feed/ carbon sources to generate bioenergy such as bio- hydrogen and electricity in a sustainable and efficient way via completing the wastewater treatment. This approach consists of anode and cathode electrodes with proton exchange membrane (PEM). Microbial fuel cells are utilized with other effective approaches (anaerobic digestion/ fermentation, local demand-based-MFC approach) that are applied to utilize biowastes for microbial cell growth and electron emission. This review discusses the recent and technologically advanced approach such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs). MFCs can apply to fulfill the increasing trends of global energy demand, found with more utilization in home appliances in urban areas, industrial tasks and transportation sectors. Last few decades, there have been recent modifications in MFCs configurations and design that have improved performance of MFCs. Recent design and configuration of MFCs have shown the removal of maximum chemical oxygen demand (up to 94-97%) with generation maximum current output (up to 5.23 mA) from wastewater. This review presents a comprehensive collection of recent information about technologies and design of MFCs with implementation of microbial electrogene with development of wastewater treatment having sustainable fuel/ energy generation at an effective level.

Keywords: Biowastes; Microbial cells; Microbial fuel cells; Nutrients; Sustainable energy; Wastewater.