Chapter 6
Fuel Cells for Renewable Wastewater Infrastructure
Publication: Renewable Energy Technologies and Water Infrastructure
Abstract
Modern infrastructure entails a significant interdependence between water security and energy security. Rapidly changing climate and population growth have resulted in an increasing demand for energy and water, increasing the stress on the water–energy nexus. This chapter presents an approach that combines dark fermentation processes to convert the chemical oxygen demand in wastewater into hydrogen, which can be used in fuel cells to generate heat and electricity; the fermentation effluent can be further treated in microbial fuel cells to generate electricity. A brief overview is provided of the six major fuel cell designs, each of which is classified based on the electrolyte and fuel used, namely, hydrogen fuel cells, alkaline fuel cells, phosphoric acid fuel cells, molten carbonate fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells, and microbial fuel cells.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the funding support from the Electric Power Research Institute (No. 10003325), the National Science Foundation (No. 1736255), and NASA-EPSCoR (No. NNX16A). The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
Barbosa, M. J., J. M. S. Rocha, J. Tramper, and R. H. Wijffels. 2001. “Acetate as a carbon source for hydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria.” J. Biotechnol. 85 (1): 25–33.
Baschuk, J. J., and X. Li. 2001. “Carbon monoxide poisoning of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.” Int. J. Energy Res. 25 (8): 695–713.
Behling, N. 2012. Fuel cells: current technology challenges and future research needs. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Call, D., and B. E. Logan. 2008. “Hydrogen production in a single chamber microbial electrolysis cell lacking a membrane.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 42 (9): 3401–3406.
Cheng, H., K. Scott, and C. Ramshaw. 2002. “Intensification of water electrolysis in a centrifugal field.” J. Electrochem. Soc. 149 (11): 11–172.
Cusick, R. D., B. Bryan, D. S. Parker, M. D. Merrill, M. Mehanna, P. D. Kiely, et al. 2011. “Performance of a pilot-scale continuous flow microbial electrolysis cell fed winery wastewater.” Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 89 (6): 2053–2063.
Do, M., H. Ngo, W. Guo, Y. Liu, S. W. Chang, D. D. Nguyen, et al. 2018. “Challenges in the application of microbial fuel cells to wastewater treatment and energy production: A mini review.” Sci. Total Environ. 639: 910–920.
DOE. 2006. Energy demands on water resources. Technical Rep. No. 201107. Washington, DC: DOE.
EIA (Energy Information Administration). 2014. Annual energy outlook 2014: With projections to 2040. Washington, DC: EIA.
Feeley, T. J., L. Green, J. T. Murphy, J. Hoffmann, and B. A. Carney. 2005. Department of Energy/Office of Fossil Energy's Power Plant Water Management R&D Program. Pittsburgh, PA: National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Hakobyan, L., L. Gabrielyan, and A. Trchounian. 2019. “Biohydrogen by Rhodobacter sphaeroides during photo-fermentation: Mixed vs. sole carbon sources enhance bacterial growth and H2 production.” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 44 (2): 674–679.
Han, S. K., and H. S. Shin. 2004. “Performance of an innovative two-stage process converting food waste to hydrogen and methane.” J. Air Waste Manage. Assoc. 54 (2): 242–249.
Heidrich, E. S., J. Dolfing, K. Scott, S. R. Edwards, C. Jones, and T. P. Curtis. 2013. “Production of hydrogen from domestic wastewater in a pilot-scale microbial electrolysis cell.” Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 97 (15): 6979–6989.
Huang, K., and J. Goodenough. 2009. Solid oxide fuel cell technology: Principles, performance and operations. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Kirubakaran, A., S. Jain, and R. K. Nema. 2009. “A review on fuel cell technologies and power electronic interface.” Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev. 13 (9): 2430–2440.
Kruse, O., J. Rupprecht, K. P. Bader, S. Thomas-Hall, P. M. Schenk, G. Finazzi, et al. 2005. “Improved photobiological H2 production in engineered green algal cells.” J. Biol. Chem. 280 (40): 34170–34177.
Liu, H., S. Grot, and B. E. Logan. 2005. “Electrochemically assisted microbial production of hydrogen from acetate.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 39 (11): 4317–4320.
Logan, B., B. Hamelers, R. Rozendal, U. Schröder, J. Keller, and S. Freguia. 2006. “Critical review microbial fuel cells: Methodology and technology.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 40 (17): 5181–5192.
Mohan, S. V., V. Lalit Babu, and P. N. Sarma. 2007. “Anaerobic biohydrogen production from dairy wastewater treatment in sequencing batch reactor (AnSBR): Effect of organic loading rate.” Enzyme Microbial Technol. 41 (4): 506–515.
Nath, K., M. Muthukumar, A. Kumar, and D. Das. 2008. “Kinetics of two-stage fermentation process for the production of hydrogen.” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 33 (4): 1195–1203.
Oh, Y., S. Raj, G. Jung, and S. Park. 2013. “Metabolic engineering of microorganisms for biohydrogen production.” Biohydrogen, 45–65. New York: Elsevier.
Ong, M. D., R. B. Williams, and S. R. Kaffka. 2014. DRAFT comparative assessment of technology options for biogas clean-up. Davis, CA: Univ. of California.
Pirne, M., and M. Yonkin. 2008. Statewide assessment of energy use by the municipal water and wastewater sector. Rep. No 08-17. Albany, NY: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
Potter, M. C. 1911. “Electrical effects accompanying the decomposition of organic compounds.” Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Series B 84 (571): 260–276.
Shrestha, N., G. Chilkoor, J. Wilder, V. Gadhamshetty, and J. J. Stone. 2017. “Potential water resource impacts of hydraulic fracturing from unconventional oil production in the Bakken shale.” Water Res. 108: 1–24.
Su, H., J. Cheng, J. Zhou, W. Song, and K. Cen. 2009. “Combination of dark-and photo-fermentation to enhance hydrogen production and energy conversion efficiency.” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 34 (21): 8846–8853.
USGS. 2015. “Water use data for the nation.” Accessed July 13, 2020. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/water_use?format=html_table&rdb_compression=file&wu_year=2015&wu_category=ALL.
Van Ginkel, S. W., S. E. Oh, and B. E. Logan. 2005. “Biohydrogen gas production from food processing and domestic wastewaters.” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 30 (15): 1535–1542.
Wang, J., M. Bibra, K. Venkateswaran, D. R. Salem, N. K. Rathinam, V. Gadhamshetty, et al. 2018. “Biohydrogen production from space crew's waste simulants using thermophilic consolidated bioprocessing.” Bioresour. Technol. 255: 349–353.
Wang, J., and W. Wan. 2009. “Factors influencing fermentative hydrogen production: A review.” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 34 (2): 799–811.
Wang, J., and Y. Yin. 2018. “Fermentative hydrogen production using pretreated microalgal biomass as feedstock.” Microbial Cell Factories 17: 22.
Wang, S., and S. P. Jiang. 2017. “Prospects of fuel cell technologies.” Natl. Sci. Rev. 4 (2): 163–166.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Renewable Energy Technologies and Water Infrastructure
Pages: 113 - 133
Editors: S. Rao Chitikela, Ph.D., Venkata Gullapalli, Ph.D., and William F. Ritter, Ph.D.
ISBN (Print): 978-0-7844-1585-6
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8366-4
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Feb 10, 2022
Published in print: Mar 14, 2022
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Biological processes
- Chemical compounds
- Chemical elements
- Chemical processes
- Chemical treatment
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Cooling (wastewater treatment)
- Electric power
- Energy engineering
- Energy infrastructure
- Energy sources (by type)
- Environmental engineering
- Hydro power
- Hydrogen
- Infrastructure
- Lifeline systems
- Renewable energy
- Waste management
- Waste treatment
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.