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Flow-Electrode Microbial Electrosynthesis for Increasing Production Rates and Lowering Energy Consumption

Authors :
Na Chu
Donglin Wang
Houfeng Wang
Qinjun Liang
Jiali Chang
Yu Gao
Yong Jiang
Raymond Jianxiong Zeng
Source :
Engineering, Vol 25, Iss , Pp 157-167 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
Elsevier, 2023.

Abstract

The development of microbial electrosynthesis (MES) for renewable electricity-driven bioutilization of CO2 has recently attracted considerable interest due to its ability to synthesize chemicals with the transition towards a circular carbon economy. However, the increase of acetate production and the decrease of energy consumption of MES using an advanced reactor design have received less attention. In this study, the total acetate production rate using novel flow-electrode MES reactors ((16 ± 1) g·m−2·d−1) was double that using reactors without powder activated carbon (PAC) amendment ((8 ± 3) g·m−2·d−1). The flow-electrode MES reactors had a Coulombic efficiency of 43.5% ± 3.1%, an energy consumption of (0.020 ± 0.005) kW·h·g−1, and an energy efficiency of 18.7% ± 1.3% during acetate production. The flow-electrode with PAC amendment could decrease the net water flux and charge transfer resistance, while had little impact on the cell voltage, rheological behavior, and acetate adsorption. In the flow-electrode MES reactors, the expression of genes involving in energy production and conversion were increased, and the increase of acetate production was found correlated with the increased abundance of Acetobacterium. The Wood–Ljungdahl pathway (WLP) and reductive citric acid cycle (rTCA) were found to be the pathways responsible for carbon fixation. The concentrations of acetate in the stacked flow-electrode MES reached 7.0 g·L−1. This study presents a new approach for the construction of scalable MES reactors with high-performance chemical generation and CO2 utilization.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20958099
Volume :
25
Issue :
157-167
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Engineering
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.0a901a0d142c465085a6d3492685c2f8
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2021.09.015