Simultaneous wastewater treatment and bioelectricity generation with constructed wetland incorporating microbial fuel cell

Ng, Jin Yuan (2023) Simultaneous wastewater treatment and bioelectricity generation with constructed wetland incorporating microbial fuel cell. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

Constructed wetland (CW) and microbial fuel cell (MFC) complement each other well due to the similar configuration in both systems. Therefore, incorporation of CW and MFC had emerged in years ago, which is known as CW-MFC. In contrast to the standalone systems, the integrated system had a higher wastewater treatment (WWT) efficiency with simultaneous bioelectricity generation. In this context, the open circuit and closed circuit CW-MFCs were developed to compare the effectiveness of CW-MFC and CW in this study. The performance of CW-MFC varied with the configuration and operating condition that affect the complex mechanisms in the system. This study aims to optimise the CW-MFC system for optimum removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and power generation. A few aspects that were considered in this study include the electrode material, the hydraulic retention time (HRT), and the external resistance. The respective effect was analysed. Waste materials, namely copper wire and iron strip were employed in this study. The CW-MFC with the former electrode material had a higher treatment efficiency. The effect of HRT was then investigated by varying from 1 d to 7 d. Subsequently, the optimal external resistance was determined among the resistors of 110 Ω, 560 Ω, and 1000 Ω. The findings show that the copper CWMFC achieved the most outstanding performance on day 7 when it was externally connected to the smallest resistance. By applying the optimum operating condition, the system removed an average of 85.1 % COD from the municipal wastewater and generate a power density of 40.3 mW/m2 . The total cost of this study was RM 200.80. This highlights that utilisation of waste material as the electrode form a cost-effective viii and more sustainable CW-MFC system for treating the wastewater and producing the bioelectricity concurrently.

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