| Abstrakt: |
The removal of nitrogen from wastewater is one of the challenges faced by environmental engineers globally. Autotrophic denitrification is a promising method for treating nitrate (NO3−) -contaminated wastewater because of its relatively low requirement for carbon and lesser sludge yield. Therefore, this study was aimed at investigating the autotrophic denitrification efficiency of two different dual-chamber configurations of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) in order to provide a foundation for building scalable, efficient, and sustainable denitrification systems. Analysis revealed that the maximum current density and power density were 4,327 mA/m3 and 1,441 mW/m3, respectively, in a cube-shaped dual-chamber MFC (C-MFC), whereas these values were 1,452 mA/m3 and 370 mW/m3, respectively, in an H-shaped dual-chamber configuration (H-MFC). In addition, the C-MFC and H-MFC achieved relatively high NO3− reduction rates of up to 28 and 15.6 g/m3/day, respectively. The cathodic coulombic efficiency was observed to be 57% in the C-MFC and 30% in the H-MFC. The average chemical oxygen demand removal efficiency was about 98% for both MFC configurations. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed significant changes in the microbial community structure under different reactor configurations. The relative abundance of Proteobacteria (34.67%) and Firmicutes (18.59%) at the phylum level were higher in the C-MFC than the H-MFC, signifying that higher current generation can enhance the proliferation and microbial activity of autotrophic denitrifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
