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Electrochemically and Bioelectrochemically Induced Ammonium Recovery
Published on: January 22, 2015
Efficient removal of nitrobenzene and concomitant electricity production by single-chamber microbial fuel cells with
Enren Zhang1, Feng Wang1, Wenjing Zhai1
1School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou City 225002, China.
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 25Wm-3 could be obtained when S-MFCs were operated in the NB loading range of 1.2-6.2molm-3d-1, and stable electricity production over 13.7Wm-3 could be produced in a NB loading range of 1.2-14.7molm-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 17.2molm-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.
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