Bio-electrochemical conversion of industrial wastewater-COD combined with downstream methanol synthesis – an economic and life cycle assessment

Streeck, Jan; Hank, Christoph; Neuner, M.; Gil-Carrera, L.; Kokko, Marika; Pauliuk, Stefan; Schaadt, Achim; Kerzenmacher, Sven; White, Robin J.

doi:10.1039/c8gc00543e

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In such cases, a full exploitation of the microbial potential is not necessary and low-cost standard commercial materials (carbon felts, ceramic separators) perform satisfactorily. In contrast, large scale wastewater/remediation applications (Hiegemann et al, 2016;Lu et al, 2017b;Wang et al, 2017) or high-tech applications such as the production of specialty chemicals (Raes et al, 2016;Streeck et al, 2018) are not yet ready for marketing, because here, high efficiencies are mandatory for economic operation and competitiveness with established technologies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Selection of Carbon Fiber Properties for High-Performance Textile Electrodes in Bioelectrochemical Systems

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Novel applications of bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are emerging constantly, but the majority still lacks economic viability. Especially the use of electrochemical system components without adaptation to BES requirements causes poor exploitation of the potential system performance. The electrode material is one central component that determines BES performance. While commercial carbon fiber (CF) fabrics are commonly used, their customizability as two-or three-dimensional electrode material for BES is rarely investigated. Using pure cultures of S. oneidensis MR-1, we identified CF properties impacting bacterial current generation: (1) The removal of the sizing (protective coating) is of great importance for all the fibers studied, as it acts as an electrical insulator. By desizing, the maximum current density (j max) is increased by up to 40-fold. (2) Alteration of the filament surface chemistry results in an accelerated initial development of current generation, but the maximum current density (j max) is hardly affected. (3) A specific yarn structure, the stretch-broken yarn, supports exceptionally high current densities. The good electrode performance is correlated to the presence of free filament ends (responsible for 41% current increase), which are characteristic for this yarn. (4) Moreover, a combination of these free filament ends with a high degree of graphitization enhances electrode performance of a commercial fabric by 100%. The results demonstrate that the CF selection can greatly influence the achievable electrode performance of CF fabrics, and thereby contributes to rational engineering of CF based electrodes that can be tailored for the many BES applications envisaged.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Selection of Carbon Fiber Properties for High-Performance Textile Electrodes in Bioelectrochemical Systems

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There are limited studies on the LCA of MEC. Streeck et al . demonstrated that the use of low‐cost materials in MECs has greater potential to reduce the cost compared with using expensive high‐performance materials to lower the internal resistance and polarization losses.…”

Section: Research Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…135 There are limited studies on the LCA of MEC. Streeck et al 136 demonstrated that the use of low-cost materials in MECs has greater potential to reduce the cost compared with using expensive high-performance materials to lower the internal resistance and polarization losses. LCA indicated that a waste-based process was superior to fossil-based methanol synthesis in terms of global warming potential and cumulated fossil energy demand.…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Techno-economic Analysis and Commercimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The conventional MEC configuration is two-chamber, where the two compartments (anode and cathode) are spatially separated by a thin membrane and connected through an external circuit. 136 A good anode material should have a large specific area, good stability and high conductance. Carbon cloth is considered to be an excellent substrate for anodic biofilms in the MEC.…”

Section: Optimization For Mec Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Microbial electrolysis cell as an emerging versatile technology: a review on its potential application, advance and challenge

Hua

et al. 2019

J of Chemical Tech & Biotech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) have been studied in a wide range of potential applications such as recalcitrant pollutants removal, chemicals synthesis, resources recovery and biosensors. However, MEC technology is still in its infancy and poses serious challenges for practical large‐scale applications. To understand the diversified applications of MEC, this review aims to explore MEC applications in the following contexts: an overview of MEC for energy generation and recycling such as hydrogen, methane, formic acid and hydrogen peroxide; contaminant removal, specifically complex organic pollutants and inorganic pollutants; as a sensor; as well as resource recovery. New concepts of MEC technology; configuration optimization; electron transfer pathways in biocathodes, and coupling with other technologies for value‐added applications such as MEC‐anaerobic digestion, MEC‐MFC, MEC‐MDC and bio‐E‐Fenton system are discussed. Finally, challenges and outlooks are suggested. The review aims to assist researchers and engineers to understand the latest trends in MEC technologies and applications. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry

show abstract

“…The overall environmental impacts of the MEC systems increased with the increase of the applied external voltage, while decreased with the increase of the recovered hydrogen production and the 97 electricity transformation efficiency. The environmental impacts of MEC system producing/recovering chemicals other than hydrogen were reported, such as methanol [253], hydrogen peroxide [254,255], ammonium [256], etc., and demonstrated the environmental benefits compared to the conventional synthesis method. However, this was not discussed in this paper considering they were out of scope of the current study.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic waste to biohydrogen: A critical review from technological development and environmental impact analysis perspective

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The increasing worldwide population and rapid urbanization have led to huge amount of fossil fuels consumption and waste generation. The awareness of living in a sustainable society is pushing people to target a low-carbon energy structure. Hydrogen, a carbonfree energy source, draws more and more attention. Particularly, biohydrogen from organic waste calls great interest by generating hydrogen and disposing waste simultaneously. Therefore, the three main technologies converting waste to biohydrogen: biological fermentation, thermochemical gasification and microbial electrolysis cell, were reviewed in this study from both technological and environmental perspective. The results showed that a variety of waste streams have been tested to produce hydrogen and different production efficiency were reported. The most favourable waste material for fermentation and microbial electrolysis cell were different types of wastewater, and agricultural lignocellulosic waste was also intensively studied in fermentation. Whereas wooden waste and municipal solid waste were the two wastes investigated the most in gasification.Optimization of the operational parameters was proved to improve the hydrogen production. However, researches focusing on scale-up of these technologies are still needed. On the other hand, life cycle assessment demonstrated that waste gasification had a better environmental profile compared to other technologies. However, the majority of the reviewed life cycle assessment studies failed to further explain the robustness due to the lack of sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, indicating high quality life cycle assessment studies are needed in the future.

show abstract

Bio-electrochemical conversion of industrial wastewater-COD combined with downstream methanol synthesis – an economic and life cycle assessment

Abstract: 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.

Cited by 18 publications

References 33 publications

Rational Selection of Carbon Fiber Properties for High-Performance Textile Electrodes in Bioelectrochemical Systems

Rational Selection of Carbon Fiber Properties for High-Performance Textile Electrodes in Bioelectrochemical Systems

Microbial electrolysis cell as an emerging versatile technology: a review on its potential application, advance and challenge

Organic waste to biohydrogen: A critical review from technological development and environmental impact analysis perspective

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About