Cellulose has been used in two-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs), but power densities were low. Higher power densities can be achieved in air-cathode MFCs using an inoculum from a two-chamber, aqueous-cathode microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). Air-cathode MFCs with this inoculum produced maximum power densities of 1070 mW m(-2) (cathode surface area) in single-chamber and 880 mW m(-2) in two-...

Abstract A microbial electrolysis cell integrated in an anaerobic digestion system (MEC-AD) is efficient configuration to produce methane from exhausted vine shoot fermentation broth (EVS). The worked a single-chamber two-electrode at applied potential of 1 V with feeding ratio 30/70 (30% EVS 70% synthetic medium). In addition, identical operated open circuit was used as control reactor. Experi...

In comparison to the transportation and storage of hydrogen, methane has advantages in the practical application, while the emerging product termed as 'biohythane' could be an alternative to pure hydrogen or methane in a new form of energy recovery from microbial electrolysis cell (MEC). However, the cathodic catalyst even for biohythane still bothers the performance and cost of total MEC. Here...

Practical applications of microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) require high hydrogen production rates and a compact reactor. These goals can be achieved by reducing electrode spacing but high surface area anodes are needed. The brush anode MEC with electrode spacing of 2 cm had a higher hydrogen production rate and energy efficiency than an MEC with a flat cathode and a 1-cm electrode spacing. T...

In this study, the high-production-volume chemical benzothiazole (BTH) from synthetic water was fully degraded into less toxic intermediates of simple organic acids using an up-flow internal circulation microbial electrolysis reactor (UICMER) under the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 h. The bioelectrochemical system was operated at 25 ± 2 °C and continuous-flow mode. The BTH loading rate v...

Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) can be used as a downstream process to dark fermentation to further capture electron in volatile fatty acids that remain after fermentation, improving this way the viability of the overall process. Acetic and propionic acid are common products of dark fermentation. The main objective of this work was to investigate the effect of different initial concentratio...

A hydrogen utilizing exoelectrogenic bacterium (Geobacter sulfurreducens) was compared to both a nonhydrogen oxidizer (Geobacter metallireducens) and a mixed consortium in order to compare the hydrogen production rates and hydrogen recoveries of pure and mixed cultures in microbial electrolysis cells (MECs). At an applied voltage of 0.7 V, both G. sulfurreducens and the mixed culture generated ...

Leveraging nature's biocomplexity for solving human problems requires better understanding of the syntrophic relationships in engineered microbiomes developed in bioreactor systems. Understanding the interactions between microbial players within the community will be key to enhancing conversion and production rates from biomass streams. Here we investigate a bioelectrochemical system employing ...