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Electricity Effectively Utilization by Integrating Microbial Fuel Cells with Microbial Immobilization Technology for Denitrification

  • Research Paper
  • Bioprocess Engineering
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Abstract

We report a novel strategy of integrating microbial fuel cell (MFC) with microbial immobilization technology (MIT) in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) to test the performance of nitrate removal for the first time. Results showed that MFC could enhance nitrate removal in the novel integrated system, especially for wastewater with low carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, and the nitrate removal efficiency reached 91.35% in the lab-scale integrated system, including 12.25% nitrate consumption by MFC in one typical cycle. The anode of MFC recovered energy in the form of electricity, floating cathode of MFC prevented the loss of immobilized denitrifying bacteria particles and degraded a portion of nitrate, and the maximum voltage production of MFC was 0.246 V. The novel integrated system in this paper showed excellent nitrate removal performance and it will be a highly potential novel setup for efficient nitrate removal of wastewater treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment of China (No.2017ZX07103-001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China

    Lian-gang Hou & Jun Li

  2. Department of Bioengineering, Qilu University of Technology, Jinan, 250353, China

    Qin-zheng Yang

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  1. Lian-gang Hou
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  2. Qin-zheng Yang
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  3. Jun Li
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Correspondence to Jun Li.

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Hou, Lg., Yang, Qz. & Li, J. Electricity Effectively Utilization by Integrating Microbial Fuel Cells with Microbial Immobilization Technology for Denitrification. Biotechnol Bioproc E 25, 470–476 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-019-0470-2

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