Because of the low cost for construction and operation,constructed wetlands have been widely used for the treatment of drinking water sources and other water bodies that are not severely polluted.On the other hand,microbial fuel cells (MFC) could potentially achieve both energy generation and wastewater purification,though the construction cost is high.Based on the bio-electrochemical theory,a novel device,the integrated vertical flow constructed wetland (IVCW) embedded with MFC (IVCW-MFC),was designed and built for the treatment of the slightly-polluted source waters with relatively high nitrogen and low carbon,in which the denitrification was usually limited by the shortage of carbon source.The water purification performance,particularly denitrification,and electrical characteristics were examined in this system with no additional carbon sources added.The maximum output voltage and power density reached 777mV and 8.05mW -m2,respectively,when the external resistance was set at 600011.The system exhibited the effective removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and nitrate since a better denitrification was observed.The maximum efficiency of total nitrogen (TN) removal was as high as 97.35% when no carbon source was added to the constructed wetland and the average removal efficiency was around 70%,even with a high load of TN,3.3mg/L on average,in the influent.Furthermore,the macrophytes were not affected by the embedding of MFC and grew normally in the constructed wetland.
Vertical flow constructed wetland microbial fuel cell slightly-polluted source water denitrification power generation
Xu Dan Pan Rong Luo Binhua Zhang Yi Huang Faming Qiu Dongru Xia Shibinu Wu Zhenbin
College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, Ch Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China; Graduate University of Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, Ch