Integrating anaerobic digestion with microbial electrolysis cell for performance enhancement: A review

Wei Wang; Duu-Jong Lee; Zhongfang Lei

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126321

Integrating anaerobic digestion with microbial electrolysis cell for performance enhancement: A review

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Jan;344(Pt B):126321. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126321. Epub 2021 Nov 14.

Authors

Wei Wang¹, Duu-Jong Lee², Zhongfang Lei³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Chemistry Division, Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tang, Hong Kong.
³ Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan.

PMID: 34785334
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126321

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion has been recognized as promising technology for bioenergy production, while the bottlenecks including long start up times, low methane contents, and susceptibility toward environmental change attenuate the process benefits. Integrating microbials electrolysis cell (MEC) with anaerobic digestion (AD) has been recognized as a promising strategy for alleviate the performance bottleneck. This review summarized and updated the current researches that utilize MEC-AD for enhanced methane production from biomass. The integrated AD-MEC was first elucidated, followed by illustrations on strategies for process performance enhancements, parameters effects, and the associated applications. Finally, the challenges and prospects were outlined in this work.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Direct interspecies electron transfer; Microbial electrolysis cell; Performance enhancement.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Anaerobiosis
Biomass
Bioreactors*
Electrolysis*
Methane

Substances

Methane