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Influence of sludge age on the performance of MFC treating winery wastewater
Eduardo D Penteado1, Carmen Maria Fernandez-Marchante2, Marcelo Zaiat1
1Laboratório de Processos Biológicos (LPB), Centro de Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e Inovação em Engenharia Ambiental, Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC), Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Engenharia Ambiental - Bloco 4-F, Av. João Dagnone, 1100, Santa Angelina, 13563-120 São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
Abstract:
The objective of this paper was to determine the influence of sludge age on microbial fuel cell (MFC) performance for generating electricity and removing organic matter from winery wastewater. Six Solid Retention Times (SRT) were used: 1.2, 1.4, 1.8, 2.3, 3.5 and 7.0 d. Results demonstrate that the electricity generation increases by decreasing the SRT, selecting electrogenic microorganisms, once the specific organic loading rate (SOLR) increased and the competition for substrate was reduced. Decreasing the SRT, coulombic efficiency can be increased from 3.4% to almost 42.2% and maximum power density from 58 to 890 mW m(-2). However the SRT did not influence on organic matter removal in biological treatment, because only a small part of COD was removed oscillating around 600 mg L(-1) d(-1)and it was very similar at all SRT studied.
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