Autotrophic nitrogen removal from ammonium at low applied voltage in a single-compartment microbial electrolysis cell

Anodic ammonia oxidation to nitrogen gas catalyzed by mixed biofilms in bioelectrochemical systems

“…However, the current was fairly low without ammonia addition. These results demonstrate that ammonia can be served as an alternative electron donor for electricity production, which is consistent with the results of our previous report [19] and He et al [22], but in this study, we firstly report nitrogen gas production in the process of anodic ammonia oxidation catalyzed by microbes.…”

“…Cyclic voltammetry measurements were performed with an electrochemical working station (EC550, China) at a scan rate of 10 mV s −1 in the potential range from 0.8 V to -0.6 V. Micrographs were taken by the scanning electron microscope (S-4800, Japan) as our previous described [14]. The Coulombic efficiency (CE) was calculated to address the recovery of electron as electrical current from the oxidation of ammonia to nitrogen as described in our previous study [19].…”

Enhanced azo dye removal through anode biofilm acclimation to toxicity in single-chamber biocatalyzed electrolysis system

“…At the cathode, oxygen and proton is an electron acceptor generating electrical energy ) and hydrogen energy in initial research (Liu et al,2008;Wang et al, 2011). In recent years, the scope of electron acceptor has expanded, such as carbon dioxide (Nevin et al, 2011), nitrate (Guoqiang et al, 2012), perchlorate (Butler et al, 2010), nitrobenzene (Mu, 2009) or other pollutants Shen et al, 2012;Zhan et al, 2012). Whether in energy generation or pollutants removal, the BES is becoming more recognized on environmental problems and issues.…”

Ammonia as carbon-free substrate for hydrogen production in bioelectrochemical systems

“…The phylogenetic affiliation of each 16S rRNA gene sequence was analyzed by RDP Classifier at a confidence level of 80% (http://pyro.cme.msu.edu/). The coulombic efficiency was calculated to address the recovery of electron as electrical current from the oxidation of ammonia to nitrogen as described in our previous report [16]. The cumulative electric charge (eq i ) that was transferred at the electrodes was calculated by integrating the current (A) over the period of electrode polarization.…”

“…Although ammonia has been reported as an anodic substrate for electricity generation, the coulombic efficiency (CE) is very low, only 0.34% and 1.1% reported by two papers respectively [13,14], which indicates that the ability of ammonia oxidation with electrode as electron acceptor need to be improved, and that there are may be others metabolic pathways for anodic ammonia transformation. In addition, the products of ammonia oxidation are nitrite and nitrate [15,16], which are not suitable for nitrogen removal. Ideally, nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas should be generated at anode and cathode respectively in the process of anodic ammonia oxidation.…”