Nitrogen recovery from wastewater using microbial fuel cells

Abstract

Nitrogen is one of major contaminants in wastewater; however, nitrogen, as bio-elements for crop growth, is the indispensable fertilizer in agriculture. In this study, two-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were first operated with microorganisms in anode chamber and potassium ferricyanide as catholyte. After being successfully startup, the two-chamber MFCs were re-constructed to three-chamber MFCs which were used to recover the \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-}-\mathrm{N} and \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{4}}^{+}-\mathrm{N} of synthetic wastewater into value-added nitrogenous fertilizer from cathode chamber and anode chamber, respectively. Ferric nitrate was used as the sole electron acceptor in cathode, which also was used to evaluate the \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-}-\mathrm{N} recover efficiency in the case major anion of \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-} in cathode. The output voltage of these MFCs was about 600–700 mV at an external load of 500 Ω. About 47% \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{4}}^{+}-\mathrm{N} in anode chamber and 83% \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-}-\mathrm{N} in cathode chamber could be recovered. Higher current density can selectively improve the recovery efficiency of both \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{4}}^{+}-\mathrm{N} and \mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-}-\mathrm{N}. The study demonstrated a nitrogen recovery process from synthetic wastewater using three-chamber MFCs.

Keywords

nitrogen recovery / microbial fuel cells (MFCs) / electromigration / wastewater treatment

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian (No. 2012J05105), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51208490), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. IUEQN201306) and the Hundred Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

ƒis available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-014-0730-5 and is accessible for authorized users.

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