Increasing the bio-electrochemical system performance in azo dye wastewater treatment: Reduced electrode spacing for improved hydrodynamics

•A novel folded stainless steel mesh electrode module for BES was developed.•Azo dye and COD removal were improved by reducing electrode spacing in BES.•Pollutants removal enhanced was significantly correlated to hydrodynamics improvement.•Internal resistance change has less impact on wastewater treatment performance.

The electrodes spacing would exert a pronounced effect on bio-electrochemical systems (BESs) performance, especially for the scaling-up of reactors and practical applications. In this study, we traced the effect of electrode spacing on wastewater treatment performances from the aspects of hydrodynamics and electrochemical characteristics. Three series of folded stainless steel mesh (f-SSM) electrodes with electrode spacing of 2, 4 and 8 mm were designed for azo dye (acid orange 7 (AO7)) wastewater treatment. Results showed that BES with electrode spacing of 2 mm (RS2) obtained the highest efficiencies of AO7 decolorization (90.9 ± 0.4%) and COD removal (36.8 ± 3.8%) at HRT of 8 h, which was 30.7% and 15.2% higher than that in BES with electrode spacing of 8 mm (RS8), respectively. Moreover, the relationship between pollutants removal, internal resistance and hydrodynamics of BESs with different electrode spacing supported the hydrodynamics was significantly influence the pollutants removal performance.

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