Treatment of oilfield wastewater using a microbial fuel cell integrated with an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor

In this study, an integrated system of an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor and a microbial fuel cell (MFC) was used to treat oilfield wastewater at laboratory scale. Results showed that the integrated system performed efficiently in treating the wastewater. The removal efficiencies were higher than 90 and 83% for chemical oxygen demand and NH3-N, respectively, at 26 h hydraulic retention time. The instrumental analysis indicated that most of the hydrocarbons were satisfactorily biodegraded in the integrated system. This work demonstrated that the UASB and sequential MFC reactor coupled system could be applied to achieve electricity production with simultaneous oily wastewater treatment.