Reported By: XIAO Ke
Translated By: MENG Huan
Edited By: Jennifer Taylor
With the support of the Natural Science Foundation of China and State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, the research group leaded by Professor ZHAO Qingliang from the School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering at HIT has made important progress in bio-resource technology. Recently, under the guidance of Professor ZHAO and the assistance of young teacher JIANG Junqiu, doctoral student MENG Fanyu’s research article Bioelectrochemical Desalination and Electricity Generation in Microbial Desalination Cell with Dewatered Sludge as Fuel was published in the international journal Bioresource Technology. This paper received praise from the editors and evaluation experts, and was chosen as the cover article of Volume 157, 2014.
Microbial Desalination Cells take conventional liquid substrate as fuel, and there are always problems such as a slow start and destructive reduction in the anolyte’s pH value. The non-biological-catalytic cathode materials (like platinum) or catholyte (like potassium ferricyanide) have a higher cost and lower sustainability. This research project designed a biological-cathode Microbial Desalination Cell with dewatered sludge as substrate, which undertakes desalination, electricity generation and sludge stability at the same time. The experimental results show that the starting period of Microbial Desalination Cells with dewatered sludge as fuel shortens to 3 days, the pH value of anode substrate is maintained continuously between 6.6 and 7.6, and the days when the system is operating stably and the removal rate of organics both increase. It indicates that dewatered sludge can be used as a suitable anode substrate to improve the stability of Microbial Desalination Cells’ desalination and electricity generation efficiency, and dewatered sludge after a certain degree of stabilization can be used for further resource utilization.
Since 2006, the research group led by Professor ZHAO has conducted a lot of fruitful work in biodegradation and the energy utilization of sewage and sludge. Since 2008, Dr. JIANG has taken the lead in the research on Microbial Fuel Cells’ residual sludge degradation and electricity generation, and for the first time it is confirmed that Microbial Fuel Cells can use residual sludge as fuel and also recover electric energy when realizing sludge degradation. In addition, the research group was the first in China to carry out innovative research on the pretreatment of sludge as well as the migration and transformation laws of sludge’s organics in the process of Microbial Fuel Cells treatment. Dr. WEI Liangliang, one of the members, succeeded in creating the method of extraction, separation and analysis of sludge’s solid phase organics, providing a new way for research on the laws of sludge’s organics degradation. At present, the research group leaded by Professor ZHAO is undertaking in-depth research in this field. Relevant results achieved through the research on Microbial Fuel Cells have already been published in the international journals such as Water Research and Journal of Power Sources, and the number of published SCI papers has reached 17.
