Study on the performance of microbial fuel cell for restaurant wastewater treatment and simultaneous electricity generation

For treatment of restaurant wastewater, an experimental system of microbial fuel cell was set up, and the power generation and wastewater purification performance of microbial fuel cell system were studied. Firstly, Fe(NO₃)₃ solution was used as the catholyte to prove the feasibility of wastewater biodegradation and simultaneous electricity generation from restaurant wastewater. Then, NaCl solution and K₃FE(CN)₆ solution are respectively used as the catholyte to conduct contrastive experiments, for studying the effect of power generation performance and wastewater purification of microbial fuel cell system in different operating environment. The results showed that the COD removal efficiency of NaCl solution and K₃FE(CN)₆ solution were 30% and 22% respectively, whose average current density were 5.6 mA/m² and 5.2 mA/m². In the case that the wastewater dilution ratio was 2:1 and the concentration of NaCl solution was 0.4 mol/L, the generating ability and the purifying effect of the microbial fuel cell achieved the best state, whose steady current density reached at 8.8 mA/m² and the COD removal efficiency was 33.3%.