In a paper recently published in the open-access journal Energies, researchers reviewed global industrial wastewater production and investigated the use of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for the treatment of wastewater as an independent technology enabling substantial global-scale energy savings.
Study: Wastewater as a Renewable Energy Source—Utilisation of Microbial Fuel Cell Technology. Image Credit: remotevfx.com/Shutterstock.com
Background
Although there is a steady increase in global energy consumption, nearly 84% of all energy generated in the world is still derived from fossil fuels, the primary carbon dioxide (CO2) source. Presently, wastewater requires to be treated using energy-intensive methods. Wastewater comprises significant quantities of thermal and chemical energies, which are currently undervalued in traditional wastewater treatment methods.
The chemical…