Simultaneous enhancement of heavy metal removal and electricity generation in soil microbial fuel cell

As an environmentally sustainable bioelectrochemical technology, the microbial fuel cell (MFC) has attracted great attention. In this study, a three-chamber MFC (TC-MFC) was enhanced with different auxiliary reagents to remove heavy metals from soil. The results showed that the removal efficiency of heavy metals from soil increased with increasing auxiliary reagent concentration. When 1 mol/L citric acid, HCl, or acetic acid were used as an auxiliary reagent, the total copper (500 mg/kg) removal efficiency after 74 days of TC-MFC treatment was 3.89, 5.01 and 2.01 times that of the control group, respectively. The highest soil electrical conductivity (15.29 ms/cm), ionic heavy metal content (94.78%), electricity generation performance (363.04 mW h), and desorption stability of heavy metals were obtained when using 1 mol/L HCl as an auxiliary reagent, indicating that HCl was more suitable for the remediation of heavy metals in soil using a TC-MFC. Correlation analysis showed that the electricity generation of the TC-MFC was linearly related to the removal efficiency of heavy metals from soil (R² = 0.9296). At the same time, higher content of ionic heavy metals in the soil led to better migration of heavy metals under the internal electric field of the TC-MFC.