TY - JOUR
T1 - A comprehensive review of microbial electrochemical systems as a platform technology
AU - Wang, Heming
AU - Ren, Zhiyong
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation under Award CBET-1235848 and the Office of Naval Research under Award N000141310901 .
PY - 2013/12
Y1 - 2013/12
N2 - Microbial electrochemical systems (MESs) use microorganisms to covert the chemical energy stored in biodegradable materials to direct electric current and chemicals. Compared to traditional treatment-focused, energy-intensive environmental technologies, this emerging technology offers a new and transformative solution for integrated waste treatment and energy and resource recovery, because it offers a flexible platform for both oxidation and reduction reaction oriented processes. All MESs share one common principle in the anode chamber, in which biodegradable substrates, such as waste materials, are oxidized and generate electrical current. In contrast, a great variety of applications have been developed by utilizing this in situ current, such as direct power generation (microbial fuel cells, MFCs), chemical production (microbial electrolysis cells, MECs; microbial electrosynthesis, MES), or water desalination (microbial desalination cells, MDCs). Different from previous reviews that either focus on one function or a specific application aspect, this article provides a comprehensive and quantitative review of all the different functions or system constructions with different acronyms developed so far from the MES platform and summarizes nearly 50 corresponding systems to date. It also provides discussions on the future development of this promising yet early-stage technology.
AB - Microbial electrochemical systems (MESs) use microorganisms to covert the chemical energy stored in biodegradable materials to direct electric current and chemicals. Compared to traditional treatment-focused, energy-intensive environmental technologies, this emerging technology offers a new and transformative solution for integrated waste treatment and energy and resource recovery, because it offers a flexible platform for both oxidation and reduction reaction oriented processes. All MESs share one common principle in the anode chamber, in which biodegradable substrates, such as waste materials, are oxidized and generate electrical current. In contrast, a great variety of applications have been developed by utilizing this in situ current, such as direct power generation (microbial fuel cells, MFCs), chemical production (microbial electrolysis cells, MECs; microbial electrosynthesis, MES), or water desalination (microbial desalination cells, MDCs). Different from previous reviews that either focus on one function or a specific application aspect, this article provides a comprehensive and quantitative review of all the different functions or system constructions with different acronyms developed so far from the MES platform and summarizes nearly 50 corresponding systems to date. It also provides discussions on the future development of this promising yet early-stage technology.
KW - Bioelectrochemical system
KW - MXC
KW - Microbial electrochemical system
KW - Microbial electrochemical technology
KW - Microbial fuel cell
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U2 - 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2013.10.001
DO - 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2013.10.001
M3 - Review article
C2 - 24113213
AN - SCOPUS:84888015677
SN - 0734-9750
VL - 31
SP - 1796
EP - 1807
JO - Biotechnology Advances
JF - Biotechnology Advances
IS - 8
ER -