Food and agricultural wastes as substrates for bioelectrochemical system (BES): The synchronized recovery of sustainable energy and waste treatment

Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) are one of the recent promising technologies developed for their multifaceted applications such as bioenergy generation, wastewater treatment and synthesis of value added chemicals. Among these applications, microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for wastewater treatment with simultaneous power generation are being widely studied, while the other applications are gaining prominence very recently. A wide range of wastewaters, ranging from domestic to industrial origin, were studied for their potential of power generation in MFCs with their simultaneous treatment. Though, some reviews have been published in the direction of consolidating the data of different wastewaters used as substrates in MFC, detailed review pertaining to the food and agriculture based wastewater was not yet reported. Considering the hidden potential of food and agricultural wastewater, this review article provides a comprehensive view on the MFC research related to these types wastewater. Major bottlenecks in enhancing the power output and treatment efficiencies along with the future directions were also discussed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.