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Factors affecting the performance of microbial fuel cells for sulfide and vanadium (V) treatment

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Abstract

Sulfide and vanadium (V) are pollutants commonly found in wastewaters. A novel approach has been investigated using microbial fuel cell (MFC) technologies by employing sulfide and V(V) as electron donor and acceptor, respectively. This results in oxidizing sulfide and deoxidizing V(V) simultaneously. A series of operating parameters as initial concentration, conductivity, pH, external resistance were carefully examined. The results showed that these factors greatly affected the performance of the MFCs. The average removal rates of about 82.2 and 26.1% were achieved within 72 h operation for sulfide and V(V), respectively, which were accompanied by the maximum power density of about 614.1 mW m−2 under all tested conditions. The products generated during MFC operation could be deposited, resulting in removing sulfide and V(V) from wastewaters thoroughly.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20877001). The authors are grateful to Dr. Zhen He from University of Southern California and Prof. Alistair Borthwick from University of Oxford for their kind help in paper organizing and English editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Peking University, The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, 100871, Beijing, China

    Bao-Gang Zhang, Hua-Zhang Zhao, Ling-Cai Kong, Juan-Juan Sun & Jin-Ren Ni

  2. Guangdong Key Laboratory of Agricultural Environment Pollution Integrated Control, Guangdong Institute of Eco-Environment and Soil Sciences, 510650, Guangzhou, China

    Shun-Gui Zhou

  3. Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 100083, Beijing, China

    Chun-Hong Shi & Yang Yang

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  1. Bao-Gang Zhang
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  2. Shun-Gui Zhou
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  3. Hua-Zhang Zhao
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  4. Chun-Hong Shi
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  6. Juan-Juan Sun
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  7. Yang Yang
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  8. Jin-Ren Ni
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Correspondence to Jin-Ren Ni.

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Zhang, BG., Zhou, SG., Zhao, HZ. et al. Factors affecting the performance of microbial fuel cells for sulfide and vanadium (V) treatment. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 33, 187–194 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-009-0312-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-009-0312-2

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