Application of bio-electrochemical methods in water treatment,resource recovery

Examples of application of microbial fuel cell (mfc) and microbial electrolysis cell (mec) in water treatment are reported. anodic processes for organic matter degradation and cathodic processes for removal of copper and free radical species are under discussion. in applying this approach,the ionic form of copper (cu2+) can be converted to elemental metal (cu0) the results obtained in case of free radicals removal experiment demonstrates the potential of microbial fuel cells to be used as a radical scavenging tool. the main advantage of this mode over the use of conventional antioxidant chemicals is the non-invasive nature of the process which provides opportunity to perform antioxidant protection and free radical neutralization without adding any reagents into the treated fluids or objects. such actions are running without external source of energy and produce electricity. the bio-electrochemical behavior of the anode is also examined. pioneering studies related to phosphorous mobilization in treatment of ferric phosphate (mfc) and ph elevation due to proton/electron interaction in mec are studied as well. the experiments reveal the economically attractive opportunity to mobilize phosphorous (p) contained in conventional municipal wastewater treatment plants in form of ferric phosphate. higher soluble p is advantageous for optimizing its chemical precipitation. the bio-electrochemical increase of ph over ph9 offers a non-reagent option to precipitate phosphorous in presence of sufficient ammonia and magnesium as struvite. variety of cell architecture and materials of mfc and mec are explored and viewed. © 2017 university of mohammed v rabat morocco.