Application Niche of Microbial Fuel Cell as a Bio-energy Source for Sustainable Development

Water-energy crisis and wastewater treatment (WWT) issues can be addressed simultaneously in microbial fuel cell (MFC). Being a microbial electrochemical technology, it provides flexible platform for both aerobic and anoxic treatment processes and hence provides efficient WWT solution. Simple substrate to complex industrial wastewater can be effectively treated in such system. Over the advancement in research, MFC is capable to harvest electricity from nW to kW/m3 with use of high redox catalysts and novel electrodes. The output electrical energy is sufficient to operate the different electronic appliances. With biostimulation approach, MFC can be a good option as biosensor to detect the concentration of heavy metals, COD dose, pH. Additionally, MFC attracts attention for by-product recovery during WWT. Valuable products and resources such as struvite from urine, manure, H2O2, NaOH, H2 and methane gas, and other chemicals can be recovered during electrochemical reactions. According to various applications, MFC can be used for carbon capture and sequestration (in microbial carbon capture cells), for desalination of saline water (in microbial desalination cells), for biohydrogen production (in MFC-electrolysis coupled cell), for utilizing sediment as carbon source (in benthic MFC), for sanitation (in bioelectric toilet), and so on. In advance WWT system, MFC can be pre-treatment or post-treatment obtain for efficient WWT. Thus, it can be solution for biological oxidation process and as a tertiary treatment for disinfection, denitrification, aeration to make effluent suitable for discharge. Thus, MFC provides efficient and effective solution for WWT along with electricity and by-product recovery for sustainable development.