Development of trickling bio-electrochemical reactor (TrickBER) for large scale energy efficient wastewater treatment

Bioelectrochemical systems such as microbial fuel cells are novel systems; those directly transform the chemical energy contained in organics of wastewater into electrical energy by the metabolic action of the microbial community. During the last two decades, bioelectrochemical systems astonishingly increased their wastewater treatment capabilities, sustainability, and power output. However, studies on scalable architectural designs of bioelectrochemical systems received less attention. Lower power yield and high cost are two major limitations for scaling up of bioelectrochemical systems. This study reports a low cost, scalable, air cathode bio-electrochemical reactor, constructed by adopting a trickling filtration approach (TrickBER) and operated in continuous mode. Various facets of construction, installation, and operation of TrickBER were investigated and optimized to achieve an efficient performance. TrickBER was found suitable in simultaneous electricity generation during continuous wastewater treatment and, in the future, could be used in small/cottage industries.