Microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) has emerged as the promising technology for COD removal as well as bioenergy recovery during the treatment of bio-refractory wastewaters. This study mainly focused on wood vinegar (the by-product from biomass pyrolysis) treatment via MEC technology with two typical biochars (coconut shell biochar and shrub biochar) as the carriers of microorganisms in anode chamber. Results indicated that MECs with coconut shell biochar had an obvious beneficial effect for treating wood vinegar, with COD removal reached up to 71.4%. GC-MS analysis showed that furfurals present in the wood vinegar were thoroughly degraded after MEC treatment. One interesting finding is that hydrocarbons accounted for a large portion of the compounds in the effluent, which may be the comprehensive result of complex organic reactions, including decarboxylation reactions, dehydration reaction, etc. The dominant microbial populations in MEC with biochar anode mainly included Geobacter, Macellibacteroides, Oscillibacter, Sedimentibacter, Comamonas, and Lachnoclostridium. This study demonstrated that pyrolysis biochar could be incorporated as a high-efficiency MEC anode material, and MECs with the inclusion of biochar could provide a feasible way for the treatment of recalcitrant wood vinegar.

微生物电解池（MEC）已成为在生物难处理废水处理过程中去除COD以及生物能源回收的有前途的技术。这项研究主要集中在通过MEC技术处理木醋（生物质热解的副产品），其中两种典型的生物炭（椰子壳生物炭和灌木生物炭）作为阳极室中的微生物载体。结果表明，带有椰子壳生物炭的MECs对木醋液有明显的有益作用，COD去除率高达71.4％。GC-MS分析表明，MEC处理后，木醋中存在的糠醛被彻底降解。一个有趣的发现是，碳氢化合物在废水中占很大比例，这可能是复杂的有机反应的综合结果，地细菌， 拟杆菌， 牙菌， 杆菌属， 昏迷和 梭菌。这项研究表明，热解生物炭可以作为一种高效的MEC阳极材料，而含有生物炭的MEC可以为处理顽固性木醋液提供一种可行的方法。