Title:
Life cycle assessment of microbial fuel cell
Life cycle assessment of microbial fuel cell
Authors
Hou, Junjie
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Abstract
Wastewater treatment industry is energy intensive.
Large amount of environmental burden was
brought due to the energy use for the wastewatertreatment.
Much attention has been focused on bioelectrochemical
systems in recent years, since these systems can use
wastewater as a renewable resource for the production of
energy, and byproducts. One of the bioelectrochemical
systems is called MFC (microbial Fuel Cell), it uses bacterial
metabolism to produce electrical current by breaking
down a wide range organic substrates exist in the
wastewater, the wastewater after treated had lower nitrate
and TSS levels when compared with traditional aeration
wastewater treatment. Since MFC technology can produce
electricity while operation and provide better quality effluent,
it can be treated as a promising alternative to traditional
wastewater treatment. A comprehensive evaluation
of the process is needed to analysis its environmental performance.
Life cycle assessment is a systematic method
which can provide a holistic picture on the overall impact
of the system and allows the comparison between different
systems on environmental grounds. It avoid burden –
shifting, which means transfer the environment impact
from one stage to another. Only life cycle assessment can
avoid the burden shifting. Here, we did a LCA of MFC
using food waste input, analyzing its overall environmental
impact, and comparing MFC’s performances with traditional
aeration treatment. This analyze provides guidelines
for MFC process design and optimization, and help
people to have a better understanding of its environmental
performance compared with traditional aeration treatment.
Sponsor
Sponsored by: Georgia Environmental Protection Division; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service; Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Water Resources Institute; The University of Georgia, Water Resources Faculty.
Date Issued
2013-04
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