Study On Treatment Of Aniline And Nitrobenzene Containing Wastewater By Microbial Fuel Cells

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is novel device that realizes energy transformation and generates current. MFC can treat organic wastewater, while at the same time producing electrical power. The degradation of aniline and nitrobenzene by MFC and corresponding electricity generation were investigated in this paper.Firstly, a dual-chamber microbial fuel cell filled with graphite particle was assembled, using ferricyanide as the cathode electron acceptor. While sodium acetate, mixture of aniline and sodium acetate, and pure aniline were used as electron donor for the anode respectively to study the start-up characteristics of the MFC.Secondly, the degradation of aniline with and without sodium acetate in the anolyte and electricity generation were investigated, respectively. The results showed that with the presence of sodium acetate in the anode solution increased the current but decreased the degradation rate of aniline in the MFC. The aniline degradation and electricity production ability were investigated under different external resistances and aniline concentrations when pure aniline was used as the anode fuel. The experimental results showed that MFC could degrade aniline and output current at the same time.Finally, MFC was used for the degradation of nitrobenzene containing wastewater. The reduction of nitrobenzene in the cathode and its reduction mechanism were investigated under different cathode potentials and hydraulic retention times, when sodium acetate and nitrobenzene were used as the anode electron donor and cathode acceptor, respectively. The internal resistance of MFC with sodium acetate-anode and nitrobenzene-cathode was analysed and calculated by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The result showed that diffusion resistance was a major component of MFC's total internal resistance.