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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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