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Herein, a techno-economic and environmental performance evaluation (i.e. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)) of a 45 kW Microbial Electrolysis Cell system is presented in the context of industrial wastewater conversion.

This study investigates the influence of anode and cathode size and arrangement on hydrogen production in a membrane-less flat-plate microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). Protein measurements were used to evaluate microbial density in the carbon felt anode. The protein concentration was observed to significantly decrease with the increase in distance from the anode-cathode interface. Cathode placement on both sides of the carbon felt anode was found to increase the current, but also led to increased losses of hydrogen to hydrogenotrophic activity leading to methane production. Overall, the best performance was obtained in the flat-plate MEC with a two-layer 10 mm thick carbon felt anode and a single gas-diffusion cathode sandwiched between the anode and the hydrogen collection compartments.Crown

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Microbial electrolysis cells are devices capable of converting the organic fraction present in the wastewaters into hydrogen. Integrating this relatively new technology into wastewater treatment plants can improve the energy balance and result in significant savings in greenhouse gases emissions. However, there are not many studies available in the scientific literature on the carbon footprint of these systems. This paper compares carbon footprint of a wastewater treatment plant located in South Spain, to the carbon footprint of this same plant in which the aerobic treatment is partially replaced by a microbial electrolysis cell. The carbon footprint attributed to the construction of the plants was similar in both cases. However, the wastewater treatment plant with the microbial electrolysis cell system would allow mitigating up to 2,700 t CO2-equivalents, which represents a 42% saving in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the existing wastewater treatment plants.