A Study on Utilization of Latex Processing Effluent for Treatment and Energy Recovery in Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

The incremental discharge of organic waste has been of great environmental concern due to stringent environmental regulation and increased cost of waste treatment. Microbial degradation of waste is a conventional treatment route but harvesting energy from organic waste employing microbial route in microbial fuel cell (MFC) has generated considerable interest in recent years. Thus MFC presents a potential route for treatment and simultaneous energy recovery from organic waste. The present study is focused in that direction and is aimed at treatment of the latex processing effluent (LPE) with concurrent energy recovery. LPE is marked as pollutant due to high organic load, acidity and nitrogen content. LPE is of great environmental concern for north-eastern states of India and Tripura in particular, since Tripura is the second largest latex producer in India and around 25 L of effluent is produced per kilogram of latex processed. The present study fabricated a two-chambered MFC from low cost materials without membrane separator and monitored the degradation of LPE. 80 % degradation of substrate (LPE) was recorded in 18 days with 40 % total nitrogen removal. The MFC generated around 700 mV potential in open circuit condition. The maximum current generated was 0.083 A/m2 and the net power output was 64 mW/m2 of electrode area. Thus, the present study demonstrated the treatment of LPE in a low cost membrane-less MFC with concurrent energy recovery and thereby presents a sustainable utilization route of a problematic effluent, like LPE, using MFC.