Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 49, Issue 14, Pages 8833-8843Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/es506149d
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- European Commission [PIEF-GA-2012-326869]
- European Community [226532]
- European Research Council via ELECTROTALK
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The advent of renewable energy conversion systems exacerbates the existing issue of intermittent excess power. Microbial electrosynthesis can use this power to capture CO2 and produce multicarbon compounds as a form of energy storage. As catalysts, microbial populations can be used, provided side reactions such as methanogenesis are avoided. Here a simple but effective approach is presented based on enrichment of a robust microbial community via several culture transfers with H-2:CO2 conditions. This culture produced acetate at a concentration of 1.29 +/- 0.15 g L-1 (maximum up to 1.5 g L-1; 25 mM) from CO2 at a fixed current of -5 Am-2 in fed-batch bioelectrochemical reactors at high N-2:CO2, flow rates. Continuous supply of reducing equivalents enabled acetate production at a rate of 19 +/- 2 gm(-2)d(-1) (projected cathode area) in several independent experiments. This is a considerably high rate compared with other unmodified carbon-based cathodes. 58 +/- 5% of the electrons was recovered in acetate, whereas 30 +/- 10% of the electrons was recovered in H-2 as a secondary product. The bioproduction was most likely H-2 based; however, electrochemical, confocal microscopy, and community analyses of the cathodes suggested the possible involvement of the cathodic biofilm. Together, the enrichment approach and galvanostatic operation enabled instant start-up of the electrosynthesis process and reproducible acetate production profiles.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available