Abstract Microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a new ecofriendly technology that desalinates sea or brackish water by utilizing the electrical energy produced from the oxidation of organics in wastewater. However, pH imbalance as a result of proton accumulation in the anolyte and proton consumption in the catholyte significantly reduces its performance. This research demonstrated, for the first time, the proof-of-concept for a two-chamber tubular MDC (TTMDC) with a new arrangement of the anion and cation exchange membranes. The novel design was aimed to (i) mitigate the pH imbalance through a self-generated pH control mechanism, (ii) reduce internal resistance, and (iii) enhance the recovery of bioenergy in MDC using real seawater as desalination liquid. The results showed that the pH was promisingly balanced using a non-buffered domestic wastewater as the electrolyte with a significant high energy production (8 mW), current generation (43 mA), coulombic efficiency (84%), COD removal (85%) and low internal resistance (10.5 Ω) with 24.3 mg/h of desalination rate in batch operation. The study demonstrated a very promising design of MDC to achieve both the goals of high energy recovery and salt removal with self-generated pH control.

中文翻译：

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用于生物发电、废水处理和海水淡化的新型两室管状微生物海水淡化池，重点是自生 pH 值控制

摘要 微生物脱盐槽（MDC）是一种利用废水中有机物氧化产生的电能对海水或微咸水进行脱盐的新型环保技术。然而，由于阳极电解液中的质子积累和阴极电解液中的质子消耗导致的 pH 不平衡显着降低了其性能。这项研究首次证明了具有新的阴离子和阳离子交换膜排列的双室管状 MDC (TTMDC) 的概念验证。这种新颖的设计旨在（i）通过自生的 pH 控制机制减轻 pH 失衡，（ii）降低内阻，以及（iii）使用真正的海水作为淡化液提高 MDC 中生物能源的回收。结果表明，使用非缓冲生活废水作为电解质，pH 值得到了很好的平衡，具有显着的高能量产生 (8 mW)、电流产生 (43 mA)、库仑效率 (84%)、COD 去除率 (85%)和低内阻 (10.5 Ω)，批量操作脱盐率为 24.3 mg/h。该研究展示了一种非常有前途的 MDC 设计，可通过自生 pH 控制实现高能量回收和除盐的目标。