Performance assessment of innovative constructed wetland-microbial fuel cell for electricity production and dye removal

This research work deals with performance assessment of constructed wetlands-microbial fuel cell (CW-MFC) for electricity production and wastewater treatment. Microbial fuel cell consists of two chambers i.e. anaerobic and aerobic, where oxidation and reduction reactions take place. Constructed wetland also consists of aerobic and anaerobic zones where oxidation and reduction processes take place. These similarities in both technologies motivated us to design and develop a new type constructed wetland-microbial fuel cell. In this CW-MFC, the removal of dye and COD were investigated along with electricity generation. Experiments were performed in batch mode using different dye (methylene blue dye) concentration containing synthetic wastewater. Our results show that 76.2, 80.87, 69.29 and 93.15 percentage dye removal could be achieved after 96h of treatment of wastewater containing 2000, 1500, 1000 and 500 mg l(-1) initial concentration respectively. Also, the CW-MFC is able to remove 75% of COD form wastewater with 1500 mg l(-1) initial concentration of dye. The maximum power density of 15.73 mW m(-2) and maximum current density of 69.75 mA m(-2) could be achieved during treatment of 1000 mg l(-1) initial dye concentration containing wastewater. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.