Effects of Organic Material and External Resistance on Removal and Recovery of Phosphorus from Artificial Wastewater by Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

Air-cathode single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were operated with different organic substrate concentrations or different external resistances. Phosphate, magnesium and ammonium were added to form struvite deposit on the cathode. As the substrate concentration increased, current production increased, and more deposits were observed. With the lower external resistance, current production increased, and more deposits were observed. Moreover, the larger drop of current density after struvite deposition was observed in the MFC with higher current production at the beginning of the deposition test. A possible reason for this is that mass transfer for oxygen reduction reaction was inhibited by the deposit on the cathode.