BRACKISH WATER TREATMENT AND SIMULTANEOUS ELECTRICITY

GENERATION DRIVEN BY MICROBIAL DESALINATION CELLS

Simone Perazzoli*, Renan B. Bastos2, Fabrcio B. Santana3, Hugo M. Soares4
1,4 Department of Chemical Engineering and Food Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianpolis, BRAZIL
2,3 College of Chemistry and Food Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, BRAZIL

* Corresponding author: perazzoli.simone@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
Microbial Desalination Cell

Energy Environment Economy

Directly Adaptable to
In situ Low sludge Water Low carbon Less sludge Energy Valuable
electricity No aeration descentralized
desalination yeld reclamation footprint disposal recovery products
generation treatment

MATERIALS AND METHODS RESULTS AND DISCUSION

It was observed an increase in the total desalination rate (TDR, mg h-1) and
a) Reactor design and operation
desalination efficiency (R, %) with the increase of the desalination cell chambers as
Three reactor configurations with 1-, 3- or -5 desalination chambers and three well as the time of desalination cycle.
desalination cycle of 24, 48 and 96 h-1 where assessed. Desalination efficiency was improved from 12.4 2.5, 27.1 5.1, 25.2 0.9 to 42.5
6.0, 64.8 2.0, 58.0 0.1 for 1-MDC, 3-MDC and 5-MDC, respectively (Figure 2)

Figure 1 - Schematic representation of the MDC bioreactors

Figure 3 - Total desalination rate and salt removal efficiencies of 3-, 5- and 7-MDC configuration obtained
Liquid volume (anode, cathode or desalination chamber): 20 mL during three consecutive desalination cycles of 24, 48 and 96 hours, respectively.

Anodic and cathodic chambers were feed daily, with a replacement volume of 25%
(5 mL) and 100% (20 mL), respectively. Similar tendency was observed for electrochemical data, as shown in Figure 3:
Temperature: 35oC. (a) (b)

b) Analysis and Data Acquisition

COD (APHA ,2012).

Conductivity: (EC-125 conductivity

meter, Hanna Instruments).
Cell voltage: Microcontroller Arduino (Arduino
Figure 3 Voltage (a) and Current density (b) profiles for 3-, 5- and 7-MDC configuration (feed each 24 hours)
Mega 2560, Arduino, USA) and software CoolTerm.
obtained during three consecutive desalination cycles of 24, 48 and 96 hours, respectively.
Electrochemical data calculation (Logan et al.,
2006).
High COD removal (> 95%) was observed for all MDC configurations.
Desalination calculation (Zhang et al., 2016).
Figure 2 - Schematic representation of Coulombic Efficiency was around 9.74%, 15.47% and 16.01% for 3-MDC, 5-MDC and
the data acquisition system 7-MDC, respectively.
It indicates that most of the COD was removed through non-electrogenic mechanisms;
CONCLUSIONS probably anaerobic fermentation and methanogenesis (Brown et al.,2014).
Our results show that as higher the desalination cell chamber, higher is the total
desalination rate as well as the efficiency of salt removal.
MDCs have a great potential as a low cost desalination process, encouraging further ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
development for sustainable brackish water treatment. This research work was carried out with the support of the CAPES and CNPq.

REFERENCES
APHA, AWWA, WPCF, 2012. Standard Method for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 22th ed. American Public Health Association, Washington, DC.
Brown, R. K., Harnisch, F., Wirth, S., Wahlandt, H., Dockhorn, T., Dichtl, N., & Schrder, U. (2014). Evaluating the effects of scaling up on the performance of bioelectrochemical systems using a technical scale
microbial electrolysis cell. Bioresource Technology, 163, 206213.
Logan, B.E., Hamelers, B., Rozendal, R., Schrder, U., Keller, J., Freguia, S., Rabaey, K. (2006). Microbial Fuel Cells: Methodology and Technology. Environ. Sci. Technol., 40 (17), 51815192.
Zhang, H., Wen, Q., An, Z., Chen, Z., & Nan, J. (2016). Analysis of long-term performance and microbial community structure in bio-cathode microbial desalination cells. Environmental Science and Pollution
Research International, 23(6), 593140.

The 14th International Water Association Leading Edge Conference on Water and Wastewater Technologies, 29 May - 2 June 2017 Florianpolis - SC, Brazil