Sediment microbial fuel cell prefers to degrade organic chemicals with higher polarity

•The degradation rates of 68 organic chemicals in a 30 L SMFC were compared.•SMFC prefers to stimulate the degradation of organic chemicals with higher polarity.•The results are crucial for choosing a suitable method for a given contaminated site.

By operating a SMFC in heavily contaminated sediment and analyzing its global organic chemical degradation profile, this study showed a brief trend that SMFC prefers to stimulate the degradation of organic chemicals with higher polarity. As a comparison, adding nitrate as a microbial respiration-based sediment remediation strategy preferred lower polarity chemicals. Both SMFC and nitrate reactors showed high degradation capacity in benzene homologs. These results provide crucial information for the selective and proper application of SMFC in bioremediation.