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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Characterizing Electron Transport through Living Biofilms
Published on: June 1, 2018
Improved azo dye decolorization in an advanced integrated system of bioelectrochemical module with surrounding
Fanying Kong1, Aijie Wang2, Hong-Yu Ren1
1State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China.
Abstract:
A new integrated system, embedding a modular bioelectrochemical system (BES) with surrounding electrode deployment into an anaerobic sludge reactor (ASR), was developed to improve azo dye decolorization. Results demonstrated that the AO7 decolorization and COD removal can be improved without co-substrate in such system. The kinetic rate of decolorization (0.54h(-1)) in integrated system was 1.4-fold and 54.0-fold higher than that in biocathode BES (0.39h(-1)) and ASR (0.01h(-1)), respectively. COD can be removed after cleavage of azo bond, different from biocathode BES. The combined advantages of this integrated system were achieved by the cooperation of biocathode in modular BES and sludge in ASR. Biocathode was a predominant factor in AO7 decolorization, and anaerobic sludge contributed negligibly to AO7 reduction decolorization but mostly in the COD removal. These results demonstrated the great potential of integrating a BES module with anaerobic treatment process for azo dye treatment.
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