Ingenieur Vol. 75 ingenieur July 2018-FA | Page 65

Figure 5: Integrated system of MFC-wastewater treatment plant.
activated sludge process. This is significant
given that sludge management and high COD
effluent are considerable problems in industrial
wastewater treatment.
As illustrated in Figure 5, the integrated
mechanisms using MFC could be applied in the
primary and/or secondary wastewater treatment
stages. The nature of liquid sludge in the primary
sedimentation tank could be utilised as feed
in the first MFC reactor and the minimal sludge
production with lower value of COD being drained
away to the next stage of treatment. The electricity
produced from the first MFC reactor could possibly
be used to partially power the first stages of
treatment process. Secondary treatment that
normally consists of an anaerobic chamber, which
has undergone activated sludge process, can act
well as an anode by incorporating an electrode
inside the reactor chamber. The activated sludge
would provide good and diverse exoelectrogenic
bacterial strains that can power the process itself,
hence, significantly reducing the need of external
power supply to run the wastewater treatment
plant. The subsequent clearer flow resulting
from low sludge accumulation by a second MFC
system following the tertiary treatment stage
would require a less stringent clarification process
before final discharge. sugars and be upgraded to be robust enough
to fulfil industrial needs. MFC demonstrates the
potential to alleviate growing energy demands.
The indigenous exoelectrogenic micro-organisms
that are freely isolated from wastewater are the
advantages we need to seriously consider using
in this breakthrough technology. Although the
research endeavours over the last decades have
improved the power generation by several orders
of magnitude, further efforts are required to
transform this system into a real world application.
Also, Government policies should aid the
generation of ethanol production especially for the
growing transportation and agro-based industrial
sectors.
Concluding Remarks Murori, K. (2016, May). Urine Power: This could
be Africa’s Solution to Sustainable Energy. The
African Exponent.
To economically convert lignocellulosic biomass
into bioethan