Microbial fuel cell membrane bioreactor in wastewater treatment, electricity generation and fouling mitigation

Abstract

Membrane bioreactors (MBR) have gained much attention due to their ability to achieve higher treatment efficiency. However, high external energy consumption in aeration for membrane fouling mitigation has been limiting their application. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) can ideally extract energy from wastewater in the form of electricity and reduce membrane fouling. Thus, the use of MFC-MBR is rapidly expanding. However, the MFC-MBR design and operation is not fully mature and further research is needed to optimize the process efficiency and enhance the applicability. This review gives an overview of recent studies on the performances of MFC-MBR systems, regarding the design and configuration of the integrated system, irrespective of whether optimization was done or not in the operating system.