Bioelectrochemical System-Integrated Anaerobic Digestion

The widespread application of anaerobic digestion technologies faces significant challenges, including low processing efficiency, poor stability, and low methane yield. The bioelectrochemical system, such as microbial fuel cell and microbial electrolysis cell, is proposed to integrate with anaerobic digestion for performance enhancement by provision of exogenous electrons. Bioelectrochemical system-anaerobic digestion (BES-AD) enhances the electron transfer activity between microorganisms and their resistance to toxic and hazardous substances by means of electrical currents. By optimizing key factors, such as reactor configurations, electrode materials, pH, organic loading rate, and temperature, the BES-AD performance can be improved. BES-AD has shown excellent performance in the removal of highly concentrated organic compounds and refractory substances in wastewater. BES-AD has great potential to break through bottlenecks of anaerobic digestion, and further application of the coupled system is conducive to the development of green, low-carbon, and circular economy.