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Contaminant Removal and Resource Recovery in Bioelectrochemical Wastewater Treatment

Current Pollution Reports volume 8, pages 159–176 (2022)Cite this article

This article has been updated

Abstract

Bioelectrochemical system (BES) is an emerging technology for wastewater treatment. The urgent requirement for dealing with water shortage, wastewater treatment and reuse, energy generation, and resources recovery has promoted intensive research in BES during the last decade. This review summarizes the latest typical BES configurations based on specific functions, including microbial fuel cells (MFC), microbial electrolysis cells (MEC), microbial electrosynthesis systems (MSS), microbial desalination cells (MDC), microbial recycling cells (MRC), microbial solar cells (MSC), and microbial electrochemical snorkel (MES). The removal of contaminants, particularly emerging organic, non-metallic, metallic, and metalloid contaminants, and the recovery of resources in the form of bioenergy, biofuel, nutrients, metals, and metalloids in wastewater treatment using BES technology have been reviewed in this work. Limitations of BES technology in terms of reactor performance, scale-up, and construction costs for real-world wastewater treatment applications are discussed and future research directions needed for the successful deployment of BES technology are proposed.

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Change history

  • 16 March 2022

    Springer Nature's version of this paper was updated to delete added data in "BES Configurations" section.

Abbreviations

1,2-DCA:

1,2-Dichloroethane

3-D:

Three-dimensional

AEM:

Anion exchange membrane

BES:

Bioelectrochemical system

BES-AD:

BES-anaerobic digestion

BES-FBR:

BES-fluidized bed reactor

CEM:

Cation exchange membrane

CW-BES:

Constructed wetland-BES

DET:

Direct electron transfer

EAM:

Electrochemically active microorganisms

EC + BES-FBR:

BES-FBR coupled with electrocoagulation

IET:

Indirect electron transfer

MCL:

Maximum contaminant levels

MDC:

Microbial desalination cells

MEC:

Microbial electrolysis cells

MES:

Microbial electrochemical snorkel

MFC:

Microbial fuel cells

MFC-MBR:

MFC-membrane bioreactor

MRC:

Microbial recycling cells

MSC:

Microbial solar cells

MSS:

Microbial electrosynthesis systems

USEPA:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

WHO:

World Health Organization

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, 07030, USA

    Zhiming Zhang & Dibyendu Sarkar

  2. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee, FL, 32399, USA

    Liang Li

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    Rupali Datta

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  1. Zhiming Zhang
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Zhang, Z., Sarkar, D., Li, L. et al. Contaminant Removal and Resource Recovery in Bioelectrochemical Wastewater Treatment. Curr Pollution Rep 8, 159–176 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40726-022-00218-7

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Keywords

  • Bioelectrochemical system
  • Wastewater treatment
  • Contaminant removal
  • Bioenergy and biofuel recovery
  • Nutrients recovery
  • Metals and metalloids recovery

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