Long-term performance of a 20-L continuous flow microbial fuel cell for treatment of brewery wastewater

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been shown as a promising technology for wastewater treatment. Integration of MFCs into current wastewater treatment plant have potential to reduce the operational cost and improve the treatment performance, and scaling up MFCs will be essential. However, only a few studies have reported successful scale up attempts. Fabrication cost, treatment performance and operational lifetime are critical factors to optimize before commercialization of MFCs. To test these factors, we constructed a 20 L MFC system containing two 10 L MFC reactors and operated the system with brewery wastewater for nearly one year. Several operational conditions were tested, including different flowrates, applied external resistors, and poised anodic potentials. The condition resulting in the highest chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency (94.6 ± 1.0%) was a flow rate of 1 mL min−1 (HRT = 313 h) and an applied resistor of 10 Ω across each MFC circuit. Results from each of the eight stages of operation (325 days total) indicate that MFCs can sustain treatment rates over a long-term period and are robust enough to sustain performance even after system perturbations. possible ways to improve MFC performance were discussed for future studies.