Resource recovery from wastewater with Bioelectrochemical Systems

Production and recovery of energy and industrial materials from novel biological sources reduces our dependency on the Earth's finite mineral petrochemical resources and helps the UK economy to become a low carbon economy. Recovering energy and valuable resources such as metals from waste materials is an attractive but challenging prospect. The valuable materials are usually present in wastes at very low levels and present as a highly complex mixture. This makes it very difficult to concentrate and purify them in an economically sustainable manner.
In recent years there have been exciting advances in our understanding of ways in which microorganisms can extract the energy locked up in the organic compounds found in wastewater and in the process generate electricity. This is achieved in devices known as microbial fuel cells (MFC). In an MFC microorganisms on the anode oxidize organic compounds and in doing so generate electrons. These electrons are passed into an electrical circuit and transferred to the MFC cathode where they usually react with oxygen to form water, sustaining an electric current in the process. In theory MFC can be configured such that, rather than conversion of oxygen to water at the cathode they could convert metal ions to metals or drive the synthesis of valuable chemicals. It is our aim to develop such systems that use energy harvested from wastewater to recover metals from metal-containing waste streams and for the synthesis of valuable chemicals, ultimately from CO2.
This project will bring together experts from academia and industry to devise ways in which this can be achieved and will form the foundation of a research programme where scientists working on fundamental research and those with the skills to translate laboratory science to industrial processes will work together to develop sustainable processes for the production of valuable resources from waste.

The main impact of the proposed technology that will be evaluated is the application of bioelectrochemical systems to tackle the burden of waste treatment (nationally and eventually Internationally) and transferring the energy, metals and minerals contained within to produce useful products. The proposed bioelectrochemical system will have wide applications particularly to industries producing wastewater with high organic content. Thus potential non-academic beneficiaries may include the food and drink industry, breweries, agriculture and the paper and pulp industry and also water utilities charged with sustainable treatment of wastewater from a range of sources. The technologies that will be developed in the project will permit them to recover value from their waste products. More immediately the research will have impact on our industrial collaborators who will be involved in developing new materials and processes as a result of their collaboration with the academic researchers in this project ( e.g. Chemviron Carbon, MagnetoChemie, WH Partnership). These and other organizations will be involved from the outset in identifying research needs and planning a project that will meet them. The societal significance of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and geological resources is immense and this will clearly impact environmental regulators, policy makers and politicians. The accompanying Pathways to Impact document details how we will maximize the chances of realizing these impacts through various activities designed to foster close collaboration an engagement with potential non-academic beneficiaries.