Carbon-neutral wastewater treatment (1)
- MFC-based wastewater treatment
A biofilm reactor using electrochemically active bacteria as a catalyst, electroactive biofilm reactor (EBR) including microbial fuel cell (MFC), can produce electricity or value-added chemicals during wastewater treatment.
EBR generally consists of two chambers, anode and cathode chambers and the chambers are physically divided by separator. Although conventional EBR studies have focused on electricity production, their electricity production is not enough to be utilized in practical level. Accordingly, a single-chambered air-cathode system which can directly utilize oxygen in the air as an electron acceptor without aeration have been paying attention to date.
Our lab, LEME, has applied the EBR for wastewater treatment and found that a single-chambered EBR could simultaneously remove organic and nitrogen without aeration. Previous studies in LEME demonstrated the detailed mechanism through molecular-based analysis of microbial community composition. Recently we are trying to develop more practical processes based on EBR for achieving energy-neutral wastewater treatment.