Aerobic granular sludge inoculated microbial fuel cells for enhanced epoxy reactive diluent wastewater treatment

•Aerobic granular sludge was incorporated into MFCs to form a hybrid system.•AGS-MFCs shortened the startup time from 13 d to 7 d compared to MFCs without AGS.•Superior performance for epoxy reactive diluent wastewater treatment was achieved.•The high efficiency is possibly due to the synergic effect of both MFC and AGS.

Microbial consortiums aggregated on the anode surface of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are critical factors for electricity generation as well as biodegradation efficiencies of organic compounds. Here in this study, aerobic granular sludge (AGS) was assembled on the surface of the MFC anode to form an AGS-MFC system with superior performance on epoxy reactive diluent (ERD) wastewater treatment. AGS-MFCs successfully shortened the startup time from 13 d to 7 d compared to the ones inoculated with domestic wastewater. Enhanced toxicity tolerance as well as higher COD removal (77.8% vs. 63.6%) were achieved. The higher ERD wastewater treatment efficiency of AGS-MFC is possibly attributed to the diverse microbial population on MFC biofilm, as well as the synergic degradation of contaminants by both the MFC anode biofilm and AGS granules.

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