Hussain S A, Perrier M, Tartakovsky B
Département de Génie Chimique, École Polytechnique de Montréal C.P. 6079 Succ., Centre-Ville Montréal QC Canada H3C 3A7b.
National Research Council of Canada 6100 Royalmount Ave., Montréal QC Canada H4P 2R2
RSC Adv. 2018 May 8;8(30):16842-16849. doi: 10.1039/c8ra01863d. eCollection 2018 May 3.
This study describes a new approach for achieving stable long-term performance and maximizing the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in a Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC). In the proposed approach, the MEC power supply is periodically disconnected, at a frequency of 0.1-0.5 Hz and a duty cycle of 90-95%. To evaluate the impact of such periodic power supply disconnection (on/off mode) on MEC performance, experiments were carried out in two flow-through MECs with activated granular carbon electrodes. The on/off operating strategy was applied to one MEC, while the other one was operated at a fixed voltage (control MEC). Long-term on/off operation resulted in progressive increase in COD removal efficiency (from 80% to 90%) and MEC current over time, while the control MEC showed stable but inferior performance. Furthermore, by changing the operating strategies and applying the on/off approach to the control MEC, its COD removal was increased from 78% to 83% and internal resistance decreased. The proposed on/off mode of operation can be used to develop a high-rate MEC-based wastewater treatment system.
本研究描述了一种在微生物电解池（MEC）中实现稳定长期性能并最大化去除化学需氧量（COD）的新方法。在所提出的方法中，MEC电源以0.1 - 0.5Hz的频率和90 - 95%的占空比周期性断开。为了评估这种周期性电源断开（开/关模式）对MEC性能的影响，在两个带有活性炭颗粒电极的流通式MEC中进行了实验。开/关操作策略应用于一个MEC，而另一个在固定电压下运行（对照MEC）。长期的开/关操作导致COD去除效率随时间逐渐提高（从80%提高到90%）且MEC电流增加，而对照MEC表现出稳定但较差的性能。此外，通过改变操作策略并将开/关方法应用于对照MEC，其COD去除率从78%提高到83%且内阻降低。所提出的开/关操作模式可用于开发基于MEC的高速率废水处理系统。
