Abstract Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) offer an excellent solution to tackle some of the major challenges currently faced by humankind: sustainable energy sources, waste management and water stress. Besides producing useful electricity from urine, ceramic MFCs can also generate biocidal catholyte in-situ. The MFCs performance and the catholyte quality are closely correlated. Owing to the potential applicability of the catholyte to deactivate solutions with high pathogenic content, it is necessary to obtain information concerning the effect that the MFC operating conditions have in the chemical characteristics contributing to the disinfection efficacy. In this work, the effect of the MFC operation time in the catholyte generated from ceramic MFCs of different thicknesses (10, 5 and 2.5 mm) has been chemically and microbiologically evaluated, during 42 days. The results show an increase in pH and conductivity with time, reaching pH 11.5. Flow cytometry and luminometer analyses of bioluminescent pathogenic E. coli exposed to the synthesised catholyte revealed killing properties against bacterial cells. A bio-electrochemical system, capable of electricity generation and simultaneous production of bactericidal catholyte from human urine is presented. The possibility to electrochemically generate in-situ a bacterial killing agent from urine, offers a great opportunity for water reuse and resource recovery for practical implementations.

中文翻译：

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微生物燃料电池运行时间和膜厚度对电化学合成尿液阴极电解液消毒效果的影响

摘要 微生物燃料电池 (MFC) 为解决人类目前面临的一些主要挑战提供了一种极好的解决方案：可持续能源、废物管理和水资源压力。除了从尿液中产生有用的电力外，陶瓷 MFC 还可以原位产生杀菌阴极电解液。MFC 性能和阴极电解液质量密切相关。由于阴极电解液可能适用于灭活具有高病原体含量的溶液，因此有必要获得有关 MFC 操作条件对有助于消毒功效的化学特性的影响的信息。在这项工作中，对不同厚度（10、5 和 2.5 毫米）陶瓷 MFC 产生的阴极电解液中 MFC 操作时间的影响进行了化学和微生物学评估，在 42 天内。结果显示 pH 值和电导率随时间增加，达到 pH 值 11.5。暴露于合成阴极电解液的生物发光致病性大肠杆菌的流式细胞术和光度计分析揭示了对细菌细胞的杀伤特性。提出了一种能够发电并同时从人尿中生产杀菌阴极电解液的生物电化学系统。从尿液中电化学原位生成杀菌剂的可能性，为实际实施中的水再利用和资源回收提供了很好的机会。提出了一种能够发电并同时从人尿中生产杀菌阴极电解液的生物电化学系统。从尿液中电化学原位生成杀菌剂的可能性，为实际实施中的水再利用和资源回收提供了很好的机会。提出了一种能够发电并同时从人尿中生产杀菌阴极电解液的生物电化学系统。从尿液中电化学原位生成杀菌剂的可能性，为实际实施中的水再利用和资源回收提供了很好的机会。