Integrated and Hybrid Bioelectrical Systems (BES) for Wastewater Treatment

Industrial and agricultural wastewater is one of the most crucial sources of water pollution. Traditional system of wastewater, for instance, trickling filter, activated sludge and other aerobic technologies, are not cost and resource effective owing to population expansion and ever-increasing demand for clean water. The integration of state-of-the-art technologies such as bioelectrical systems (BES) with anaerobic digestion, dark fermentation and constructed wetlands is increasingly promising for industrial and domestic wastewater treatment. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an upcoming technology where microbial catalytic reactions convert chemical energy stored in organic fraction of waste to electricity. This technique is also gradually applied for removal of a variety of pollutants namely pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, decolorization of dyes and xenobiotics. Hence, these systems provide benefits in two ways of electric power generation and wastewater treatment, thereby making the whole procedure sustainable and economically feasible. This chapter discusses the principles of microbial fuel cells and their subsequent utilization for removal of pollutants from wastewater, alongwith bioelectricity generation performance. Further, the chapter discusses integration of microbial fuel cells with current treatment technologies to scale up MFCs for sustainable wastewater treatment. The concluding remarks comprise of future applications and challenges faced in the real scale systems working for wastewater treatment and bioelectricity generation.