Performance of a continuous flow microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) fed with domestic wastewater

Estimating microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) investment costs in wastewater treatment plants: Case study

“…In this study, the absence of a primary clarifier in the existing dWWTP and the reduced current densities achieved in the laboratory-scale MEC (less than 0.7 A m a À2 ) [37] prompt us to select a much more conservative thickness of 2.25 cm (see Fig. 2C and Section 2.2 for the determination of the reactor size).…”

“…The hydrogen production and the cathodic conversion efficiency (CCE) are established at 0.3 m 3 m a À3 d À1 and 45%, respectively. The operational parameters presented here were obtained from [37] (see also Section 2.2). The durability of the MEC reactor is a parameter that has a large influence on the operating costs but has not yet been properly established.…”

“…Thus, in our setup, we assume a separation of less than 1 mm between the anode and cathode. A similar design was successfully used in several studies [7,9,37,43].…”

“…Organic loading rate and MEC reactor sizeThe operational conditions of the MEC reactor have been determined based on laboratory-scale trials[37], where a 0.1-LFig. 1 e Flowchart of the existing wastewater treatment plant (top: scenario 0) and the proposed plant (bottom: scenarios 1, 2 and 3): A, screen and grit chamber; B, aerobic biological treatment (prolonged oxidation); C, secondary settling tank; D, gravity thickener; E, centrifuges; F, rectifier; G, MEC reactor; H, gas compressor; and I, gas storage tank.…”

Hydrogen production with effluent from an anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) using a single-chamber microbial electrolysis cell (MEC)

“…In the first stage in the ABR, the organic pollution was degraded by the acid formation bacteria and acidogenic mixed consortia while in the MEC, the COD removal was mainly realized by the electrogenesis flora. Compared to the single-MEC, the COD removal of ABR-MEC system was higher than other researches [9,18]. For the COD reduction in a continuousflow single-chamber MEC fed with the domestic wastewater was only 76% [18] and the SCOD removal was up to 60% at diluted influent but reduced to 50% at original concentration in a single-chamber MEC fed with fermentation liquid of waste activated sludge [9].…”