Application of bioelectrochemical systems to regulate and accelerate the anaerobic digestion processes.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) serves as a potential bioconversion process to treat various organic wastes/wastewaters, including sewage sludge, and generate renewable green energy. Despite its efficiency, AD has several limitations that need to be overcome to achieve maximum energy recovery from organic materials while regulating inhibitory substances. Hence, bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) have been widely investigated to treat inhibitory compounds including ammonia in AD processes and improve the AD operational efficiency, stability, and economic viability with various integrations. The BES operations as a pretreatment process, inside AD or after the AD process aids in the upgradation of biogas (CO2 to methane) and residual volatile fatty acids (VFAs) to valuable chemicals and fuels (alcohols) and even directly to electricity generation. This review presents a comprehensive summary of BES technologies and operations for overcoming the limitations of AD in lab-scale applications and suggests upscaling and future opportunities for BES-AD systems.

Potential applications of algae in the cathode of microbial fuel cells for enhanced electricity generation with simultaneous nutrient removal and algae biorefinery: Current status and future perspectives.

Production of biofuels and other value-added products from wastewater along with quality treatment is an uttermost necessity to achieve environmental sustainability and promote bio-circular economy. Algae-Microbial fuel cell (A-MFC) with algae in cathode chamber offers several advantages e.g. photosynthetic oxygenation for electricity recovery, CO2-fixation, wastewater treatment, etc. However, performance of A-MFC depends on several operational parameters and also on electrode materials types; therefore, enormous collective efforts have been made by researchers for finding optimal conditions in order to enhance A-MFC performance. The present review is a comprehensive snapshot of the recent advances in A-MFCs, dealing two major parts: 1) the power generation, which exclusively outlines the effect of different parameters and development of cutting edge cathode materials and 2) wastewater treatment at cathode of A-MFC. This review provides fundamental knowledge, critical constraints, current status and some insights for making A-MFC technology a reality at commercial scale operation.

Biological removal of H2S gas in a semi-pilot scale biotrickling filter: Optimization of various parameters for efficient removal at high loading rates and low pH conditions.

In this study, a semi-pilot scale biotrickling filter (BTF) was operated in a continuous co-current mode to remove high concentration of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) at optimum operational conditions. The early startup period of 6 days was needed, and then stable removal of H2S gas at inlet concentrations up to about 2000 ppm was successfully obtained at gas retention time (GRT) of 15 min and liquid recirculation rate (LRR) of 120 ml/min. The elimination capacities (ECs) increased linearly with increase in H2S loading rates (HLRs up to 38.5 g/m3 h), but a gradual decrease in removal efficiency was observed from a volumetric HLR of 18.1 g/m3 h. The LRR was further decreased from 120 to 30 ml/min, and the minimum liquid-gas ratio of 0.24 was found without decrease in removal efficiency. The MiSeq analysis revealed the presence of sulphur oxidizing bacteria (SOB) dominated by Acidithiobacillus caldus (>97%) at all portions of BTF.

Waste biorefinery models towards sustainable circular bioeconomy: Critical review and future perspectives.

Increased urbanization worldwide has resulted in a substantial increase in energy and material consumption as well as anthropogenic waste generation. The main source for our current needs is petroleum refinery, which have grave impact over energy-environment nexus. Therefore, production of bioenergy and biomaterials have significant potential to contribute and need to meet the ever increasing demand. In this perspective, a biorefinery concept visualizes negative-valued waste as a potential renewable feedstock. This review illustrates different bioprocess based technological models that will pave sustainable avenues for the development of biobased society. The proposed models hypothesize closed loop approach wherein waste is valorised through a cascade of various biotechnological processes addressing circular economy. Biorefinery offers a sustainable green option to utilize waste and to produce a gamut of marketable bioproducts and bioenergy on par to petro-chemical refinery.

Reductive behaviour of acid azo dye based wastewater: Biocatalyst activity in conjunction with enzymatic and bio-electro catalytic evaluation.

Present study illustrates the significance of biocatalyst's reductive behaviour in the degradation of dye molecules using glucose as co-substrate. An anaerobic system was operated at a dye concentration of 50mg/l with an organic loading rate (OLR) of 1.36 kg COD/m(3)-day. Decolourization and COD removal efficiencies were observed to be 42% and 48% respectively. Azo reductase (18.9 U) and dehydrogenase enzyme (1.4 µg/ml) activities showed increment with operation time. Anaerobic microenvironment showed dye reduction converting them into aromatic amines. The presence of mediators viz., cytochromes, quinines and Fe-S proteins depicted in the cyclic voltammetry profiles played a crucial role in transfer of electrons for the reduction of dye molecules. Bio-electro kinetic profiles obtained through Tafel analysis showed persistent reduction behaviour, which is in good correlation with dye degradation in the anaerobic microenvironment.

Biomineralization of azo dye bearing wastewater in periodic discontinuous batch reactor: Effect of microaerophilic conditions on treatment efficiency.

The present study illustrates the influence of microaerophilic condition on periodic discontinuous batch reactor (PDBR) operation in treating azo dye containing wastewater. The process performance was evaluated with the function of various dye load operations (50-750 mg/l) by keeping the organic load (1.6 kg COD/m(3)-day) constant. Initially, lower dye operation (50mg dye/l) resulted in higher dye [45 mg dye/l (90%)] and COD [SDR: 1.29 kg COD/m(3)-day (92%)] removal efficiencies. Higher dye load operation (750 mg dye/l) also showed non-inhibitory performance with respect to dye [600 mg dye/l (80%)] and COD [1.25 kg COD/m(3)-day (80%)] removal efficiencies. Increment in dye load showed increment in azo reductase and dehydrogenase activities (39.6 U; 4.96 µg/ml; 750 mg/l). UV-Vis spectroscopy (200-800 nm), FTIR and (1)H NMR studies revealed the disappearance of azo bond (-NN-). First derivative cyclic voltammogram supported the involvement of various membrane bound redox shuttlers, viz., cytochrome-C, cytochrome-bc1 and flavoproteins (FAD (H)).

Azo dye load-shock on relative behavior of biofilm and suspended growth configured periodic discontinuous batch mode operations: critical evaluation with enzymatic and bio-electrocatalytic analysis.

Effect of dye (C.I.Acid Black 10B) load-shock was comparatively evaluated in biofilm (self-immobilized) and suspended growth systems operated in periodic discontinuous batch mode (PDBR, anoxic-aerobic-anoxic) was investigated. At higher dye load (1250 mg dye/l), biofilm system showed relatively higher dye (74.5%) and COD (46%) removal efficiencies than the corresponding suspended mode operation (dye/COD removal efficiency, 42%/65%). Increment in dye load showed increment in azo reductase and dehydrogenase enzyme activities. Voltammograms (cyclic) showed higher reduction currents (RC) with increment in dye load specifically in biofilm system. Derivative cyclic voltammograms analysis depicted the involvement of mediators (NAD (+), FAD(+), etc.) which presumably played a major role in electron transport chain and dye degradation. Disappearance of peak (1612 cm(-1)) specific to azo group in FTIR spectrum, at higher loading rate in both the systems indicates the non-inhibitory and robust nature of PDBR operation.

Induction of anoxic microenvironment in multi-phase metabolic shift strategy during periodic discontinuous batch mode operation enhances treatment of azo dye wastewater.

Variation in anoxic microenvironment (multi-phase (MP) metabolic shift strategy) during cycle operation of periodic discontinuous batch/sequencing batch (PDBR/SBR) mode operation showed enhanced degradation of recalcitrant azo dye (C.I. Acid Black 10B) at higher dye load (1250mg/l). The process performance was evaluated by varying anoxic phasing period during cycle operation. Before multiphase (BMP) operation with 2.1% of anoxic period showed color/COD removal efficiency of 41.9%/46.3%. Increment in anoxic period responded favorable in enhancing treatment efficiency [AMPI (16.2%), 49.4%/52.4%; AMPII (26.6%), 54.7%/57.2%; AMPIII (34.9%), 58.4%/61.5%]. Relatively higher bio-electrochemical activity, persistent reductive behavior (redox catalytic currents, 0.26/-0.72µA), prevalence of redox shuttlers (Fe-S proteins, cytochromes, quinones) facilitating enhanced electron transfer by minimization of associated losses and higher enzyme activities were observed with induction of anoxic phase. Anoxic condition shifts system microenvironment between oxidation and reduction assisting reduction of dye to its intermediates followed by their mineralization.

Relative performance of biofilm configuration over suspended growth operation on azo dye based wastewater treatment in periodic discontinuous batch mode operation.

Functional role of biofilm and suspended growth bioreactor configurations in response to the treatment of azo-dye (C.I. Acid Black 10B) bearing wastewater was evaluated in periodic discontinuous batch mode operation at varying dye concentrations. The biofilm system depicted higher dye removal efficiency (93.14%) compared to suspended mode (84.29%) at 350 mg dye/l operation. Both the reactor configurations did not show much process inhibition at higher dye loads studied. Azo reductase and dehydrogenase enzyme activities showed significant variation indicating the different metabolic capabilities of the native-microflora, stable proton shuttling between metabolic intermediates and differences in the delivery of reducing powers from the substrate metabolism towards dye removal. Voltammograms visualized marked variations in electron discharge properties with the function of reactor configuration, time intervals and dye load. Higher redox catalytic currents, lower Tafel slopes and polarization resistance showed good correlation with enzyme activities and dye removal.