Evaluation of low cost cathode materials for treatment of industrial and food processing wastewater using microbial electrolysis cells

► Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) used for energy recovery and wastewater treatment. ► Examined industrial and food processing wastewaters. ► Performance of low cost MoS2 and stainless steel (SS) cathodes were compared to Pt. ► MEC performance depended more on wastewater composition than cathode material. ► MoS2 cathodes performed significantly better than SS cathodes.