Recent Advances in Nitrogen Removal from Wastewater Using Bioelectrochemical Systems.

Abstract

Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) have recently gained great attention as a promising technology that generates electricity, hydrogen, or other useful chemicals by oxidizing biodegradable organic matters using electrochemicallyactive bacteria. During the last few decades, numerous studies have been successfully carried out in the field of BESs for increasing its wastewater treatment performance. However, most studies focus on only removing organic matter from wastewater using BESs. Nevertheless, the main objective of wastewater treatment is to remove organic matter besides nutrients since nitrogen is one of the key contaminants found in wastewater. Discharging of untreated or inadequately treated wastewater may introduce an excessive amount of nitrogen species into natural waters, which can cause excessive growth of algae. Excessive algae growth promotes eutrophication of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, which impairs the quality of water resources. Even though there is limited research investigating nitrogen removal in BESs, several studies demonstrated that nitrogen can be transformed and/or removed using BESs. After considering the significance of nitrogen removal and increasing environmental concerns related on it, which summarized above, this study summarizes the recent development of nitrogen removal using BESs. Moreover, general design and operational principles of the BESs, application areas, advantages, and challenges were summarized beside different BES reactor configurations.