Affiliations 

  • 1 Sustainable Environmental Process Research Institute, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, 38453, Republic of Korea; Department of Environmental Engineering, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, 38453, Republic of Korea
  • 2 Research Institute of Biotechnology and Medical Converged Science, Dongguk University-Seoul, Ilsandong-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, 10326, Republic of Korea
  • 3 Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, National University of Malaysia (UKM), 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Center for Materials Cycles and Waste Management Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan
  • 5 Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Dongchuan Rd. 500, Shanghai, 200241, China
  • 6 Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, Dongguk University-Seoul, Ilsandong-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, 10326, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: [email protected]
Chemosphere, 2017 Jun;177:84-92.
PMID: 28284119 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.02.135

Abstract

Bio-electrochemical systems (BESs) are the microbial systems which are employed to produce electricity directly from organic wastes along with some valuable chemicals production such as medium chain fatty acids; acetate, butyrate and alcohols. In this review, recent updates about value-added chemicals production concomitantly with the production of gaseous fuels like hydrogen and methane which are considered as cleaner for the environment have been addressed. Additionally, the bottlenecks associated with the conversion rates, lower yields and other aspects have been mentioned. In spite of its infant stage development, this would be the future trend of energy, biochemicals and electricity production in greener and cleaner pathway with the win-win situation of organic waste remediation. Henceforth, this review intends to summarise and foster the progress made in the BESs and discusses its challenges and outlook on future research advances.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.