Electrosorption driven by microbial fuel cells to remove phenol without external power supply

This work studied the operating parameters (pH, electrolyte concentration, initial phenol concentration, MFCs connection numbers and mode), adsorption isotherms and kinetics of a novel electrosorption driven by microbial fuel cells (MFC-Sorption) to remove phenol without external electric grid energy supply. It proved that high electrolyte concentration and low solution pH promoted the performance of phenol removal. 3 MFCs connections in series achieved a adsorption capacity of 1.76 mmol/g, which was much higher than that in parallel connection (1.46 mmol/g). Well fitted with Langmuir isotherm, the maximum adsorption capacity by MFC-Sorption and electrosorption was observed 48% and 65% higher than that by conventional adsorption. The phenol removal by MFC-Sorption was supposed to be more suitable for a pseudo-second-order kinetics, and with the increase of initial phenol concentration from 20 mg/L to 300 mg/L, the initial adsorption rate increased 26.99-fold. It concluded that the MFC-Sorption system could cost-effectively remove pollutant of phenol.