Simultaneous water purification and energy production in a microbial desalination cell

Abstract

Current desalination and wastewater treatment technologies are consuming a lot of energy due to the energy needed for aeration, sludge treatment, thermally driven distillation, or high-pressure membrane operation. The microbial desalination cells (MDCs) are innovative technology which integrates the microbial fuel cells process and electrodialysis for water desalination, production of renewable energy and wastewater treatment. In MDCs, electrical energy is extracted from wastewater by the action of microbial extracellular respiration and at the same time used to drive the desalination process. In this Paper, lab-scale MDC was tested at ambient temperature for simultaneous wastewater treatment, water desalination and energy production. Voltage production during the experimental period was stable with an average and a maximum voltage of 100 and 183 mv, respectively. COD and TDS removals were 83 and 20%, respectively. The average calculated CE was 18.4% over the experimental period.