ReviewFood and agricultural wastes as substrates for bioelectrochemical system (BES): The synchronized recovery of sustainable energy and waste treatment
Introduction
Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) are a wide group of biologically catalyzed electrochemical systems with different functions with an overall aim of energy conservation and substrate removal. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are also one form of these BESs which can directly convert the chemical energy from an organic substrate to electrical energy through a cascade of redox reactions (Pant et al., 2012, Venkata Mohan, Velvizhi, Annie Modestra and Srikanth, 2014). The microbial metabolism is linked via electron donating and accepting conditions through the artificially introduced electrodes (anode and cathode), that induces the development of a potential difference which acts as a net driving force for bioelectrogenic activity (Venkata Mohan, Velvizhi, Annie Modestra, et al., 2014). MFCs can utilize a wide range of soluble or dissolved complex organic wastes/wastewater and renewable biomass as substrate that further offers the dual benefits of renewable energy generation in the form of electricity with simultaneous waste remediation, which makes the process eco-friendly. Studies on MFC using wastewater were more focused since 2004 and it was evident that wastewater is a potential substrate for bioelectricity generation.
Microbial species usually perform their metabolism in BESs by degrading available substrates to produce electrons and protons, which are transported by a series of carriers to a terminal electron acceptor, which produce proton motive force that enables the generation of phosphate bonds rich in energy. This energy is used by the microbial metabolic activities and growth (Venkata Mohan, Velvizhi, Annie Modestra, et al., 2014). The function of BESs is to harness the produced electrons via electrodes. The capability of BESs has increased exponentially during the last few years (Logan & Regan, 2006a). The obtained current densities from lab-scale BESs already reach values that would be promising for practical application (Rozendal, Hamelers, Rabaey, Keller and Buisman, 2008a, Rozendal, Jeremiasse, Hamelers and Buisman, 2008b). A large number of substrates have been explored for use in BESs (Pant et al., 2010, Pant et al., 2012). Of these, the food wastes and agro-residues are particularly interesting for their abundance and high quantity of organic content readily available to be used by the bacteria in MFCs. The critical factors for the practical application of BESs in the treatment of food and agro-industrial wastes are addressed in this review, along with the recent research trials to achieve this goal.
Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) have evolved as a promising technology for wastewater treatment, remote sensors, production of value-added materials through electrosynthetic or electrochemical methods and studying the interaction between microbes and solid electron donor/acceptor surfaces (e.g. microfluidic microbial fuel cells (MFCs)) (ElMekawy, Diels, Bertin, De Wever and Pant, 2013, Kelly and He, 2014a, Venkata Mohan, Velvizhi, Annie Modestra and Srikanth, 2014). The direct transformation of chemical energy to electrical one in the BESs is superior to the existing technologies in terms of the energy recovered from organic substrates (Kelly & He, 2014a). The biofilm attached to the electrode of the BESs play the primary role in biodegradation, current production or biosynthesis (Yang, Xu, Guo, & Sun, 2012). This takes place by catalyzing electrochemical oxidation and reduction at the anode and cathode, respectively, via the biocatalysts growing on the electrodes (Rosenbaum & Henrich, 2014). The current producing bacteria are termed exoelectrogens due to their abilities to directly or indirectly transfer electrons extracellularly to electrode (Logan, 2009), which could be coupled with energy upkeep to develop their growth through electrode respiration (Kim et al., 1999, Rosenbaum et al., 2012, Torres et al., 2007). The respiration process of the dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria (DMRB) is similar to that of the electrode, except some differences. The Geobacter and Shewanella bacterial species are among the most common DMRB regularly used in BESs (Yang et al., 2012).
The BESs are classified to two major categories according to the approach of using electrical current (Zhang & Angelidaki, 2014). The first category includes MFCs and microbial desalination cells (MDCs) devices (Kelly and He, 2014a, ElMekawy et al., 2014) that have the ability to use organic wastewater to generate electricity, while the second category includes the microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) which consume electrical power supply for the production of hydrogen from organic wastewater (ElMekawy et al., 2014, Kundu et al., 2013). Accordingly, several BESs were developed starting from the anode-based oxidation of organic materials in MFCs (Lovley, 2008, Rabaey et al., 2003), and shifting towards bio-cathodic reduction processes. Several electrochemical reactions could be catalyzed by microbial species, i.e. reduction of protons to hydrogen (Aulenta et al., 2012, Rozendal, Jeremiasse, Hamelers and Buisman, 2008b) or carbon dioxide to organic materials such as acetate (Nevin et al., 2011) or methane (Cheng et al., 2010, Cheng et al., 2009, Villano et al., 2010) through microbial electrosynthesis, which is considered as a promising trend for biofuel production (Lovley and Nevin, 2013, Rabaey and Rozendal, 2010). Also, the function of BESs can be feasibly modified to attain several tasks such as electrochemical reduction/oxidation, electrolytic dissociation and biodegradation (Venkata Mohan, Raghavulu, Peri, & Sarma, 2009).
Section snippets
Coupling wastewater treatment and bioelectricity generation
Different types of wastewaters, i.e. domestic, agricultural and industrial, contain different kinds of organic constituents that need to be removed prior to their discharge into environment (Angenent, Karim, Al-Dahhan, Wrenn, & Domíguez-Espinosa, 2004). Normally, these organic contaminants are treated by different physico-chemical or biological (aerobic or anaerobic) processes, consuming high energy input. Anaerobic digestion is one of the most cost-effective commercial processes that have the
The global problem of food wastes
The production of food wastes (FWs) includes the entire food supply chain, starting from agricultural stage, passing by industrial processing and up to trade and domestic handling. Approximately, 1.3 billion tons of foods per year are wasted globally during the food life cycle including dairy products, fresh vegetables, fruits, bakery and meat (Fig. 2) (FAO, 2012), with 33% of the edible food wasted (Gustavsson, Cederberg, Sonesson, van Otterdijk, & Meybeck, 2011). The volume of FWs is expected
Food industry based waste
Food industry wastewaters (FIWs) are considered as ideal substrates for electricity generation because of their rich organic content, high biodegradability and abundant availability (Digman and Kim, 2008, Li, Sheng and Yu, 2013). A wide variety of FIW has been investigated till date, for electricity generation using MFCs, including waste streams from brewery, winery, dairy, and canteen, and effluent from starch, whey, vegetable, meat, fish, and other food-processing industries. A detailed list
Scaling up bottlenecks
The use of the cheap substrates, like wastewater, as an electron donor is desirable due to the growing demand for ecological wastewater treatment with a minimum carbon output. Different types of substrates, i.e. industrial/domestic wastewaters and pure organics have been investigated for electricity production in BESs (Pant et al., 2013, Pant et al., 2010, Venkata Mohan, Velvizhi, Annie Modestra and Srikanth, 2014) and the BES volume scale has been increased from milliliters to liters, and
Concluding remarks
As one of the most promising BESs, MFCs have the benefit of the direct generation of electricity from wastewater (ElMekawy et al., 2014). In the last ten years, MFCs were intensively researched and developed, leading to expansion of their functionalities and improvement in their performances (Wang & Ren, 2013). The power density has been amplified from less than 1 mW m− 3 to 2.87 kW m− 3 (Fan, Han, & Liu, 2012), mainly due to improvements in the setup construction and operation and materials, which
Acknowledgments
Sandipam Srikanth gratefully acknowledges the Marie-Curie International Incoming Fellowship (IIF) supported Project ELECTROENZEQUEST (Grant No: 330803) from the European Commission. The contributions of Suman Bajracharya and Deepak Pant have been supported by the Strategic Research Fund at VITO.
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