This study demonstrates that the anodic Fenton process could be integrated with a microbial fuel cell to develop a self-sustained system for energy-efficient electrochemical treatment of organic wastewater pollutants.
The electro-Fenton process is efficient for the degradation of organic pollutants, but it suffers from high operating costs because of its power demands.
This Chinese work has developed a new anodic Fenton system for energy-efficient treatment of organic pollutants, by incorporating a microbial fuel cell (MFC) into an anodic Fenton process.
The new system comprises an anodic Fenton reactor and a two-chamber air-cathode MFC. The power generated from a two-chamber MFC is used to drive the anodic Fenton process for Acid Orange 7 (AO7) degradation through accelerating in situ generation of Fe2+ from sacrificial iron.
The kinetic results show that the MFC-assisted anodic Fenton process system had a significantly higher pseudo-first-order rate constant than those for the chemical Fenton methods. Electrochemical analysis reveals that AO7 did not hinder the corrosion of iron.
The anodic Fenton process was influenced by the MFC performance. It was also found that increasing dissolved oxygen in the cathode improved the MFC power density, which in turn enhanced the AO7 degradation rate.
These results clearly demonstrate that the anodic Fenton process could be integrated with a microbial fuel cell to develop a self-sustained system for cost-effective and energy-efficient electrochemical wastewater treatment.
Water Research, Volume 46, Issue 14, 15 September 2012, Pages 4371–4378.
