Effect of mode of operation, substrate and final electron acceptor on single-chamber membraneless microbial fuel cell operating with a mixed community

Abstract Waste minimization and circular thinking are to be achieved in order to cope with the limited amount of resources of our planet. In this perspective, bio-electrochemical systems (BESs) can contribute to the global balance with their ability to extract chemical residual energy from wastewater and transform it directly into electrical current. BESs development has been limited by the cost connected to reactor design, in which membranes and cathode catalyst constituted a major drawback. In this paper we report the optimization process of a simple reactor without membranes or precious catalyst that produced 47.1 mW m−2, which is more than what achieved with configurations including mem…