Degradation of 2,4-Dichlorophenol by Bacillus Subtilis with Concurrent Electricity Generation in Microbial Fuel Cell

The growing critical and toxic wastewater contamination problems seek various sustainable and environmental friendly treatment methods to be further investigated. 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) is one of the recalcitrant and hazardous contaminants normally found in industrial wastewater and in some cases in domestic wastewater as well. This study explored the capability of bacteria Bacillus subtilis to degrade the 2,4-DCP in a double chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) system. The MFC enables the removal of contaminants by bacteria with concurrent electricity generation through electron transfer mechanisms. B. subtilis is found to be a good exoelectrogenic bacterium for generating an optimum potential of 95 mV with 12 mA/m2 current density in MFC. B. subtilis was able to degrade ∼60% of 2,4-DCP into acceptable simpler metabolites, thus could be further utilized in treating hazardous phenolic contaminants while generating electricity through benign and sustainable wastewater treatment method.