Petroleum refinery wastewater treatment in two-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs)

Abstract

Petroleum Refinery Wastewaters (PRW) contain water-soluble hydrocarbons which cannot be separated by physical methods. In recent years, there have been enormous approaches to treat PRW. The most outstanding methods involve biological, photocatalytic, electro-and photo-Fenton, etc. Using microbial fuel cell is a new method to treat PRW. In this paper, PRW treatment in MFC was studied using oxygen and permanganate as cathodic electron acceptors. Also, effects of temperature and external resistance on MFC performance and PRW treatment were investigated. Finally, an electrochemical model was fitted on empirical polarization curves to evaluate activation, ohmic, and mass transfer losses. Maximum power production was 0.03 W/m2 at 33°C using oxygen as cathodic electron acceptor. Also, COD removal eficiency was 49.27% during 44 h. To enhance power production of the MFC, potassium permanganate was used as cathodic electron acceptor. At the temperature of 33°C and 0.2 g/L of permanganate concentration, the maximum power density was 0.95 W/m2 and COD removal eficiency was 78% during 44 h. © 2016 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.