Global increases in water demand and decreases in both the quantity and quality of fresh
water resources have served as the major driving forces to develop sustainable use of
water resources. One viable alternative is to explore non-traditional (impaired quality)
water sources such as wastewater and seawater. The current paradigm for wastewater
treatment is based on technologies that are energy intensive and fail to recover the
potential resources (water and energy) in wastewater. Also, conventional desalination
technologies like reverse osmosis (RO) are energy intensive. Therefore, there is a need
for the development of sustainable wastewater treatment and desalination technologies
for practical applications. Processes based on microbial electrochemical technologies
(METs) such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs), microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) and
microbial desalination cells (MDCs) hold promise for the treatment of wastewater with
recovery of the inherent energy, and MDCs could be used for both desalination of
seawater and energy recovery. METs use anaerobic bacteria, referred to as
exoelectrogens, that are capable of transferring electrons exogenously to convert soluble
organic matter present in the wastewater directly into an electrical current to produce
electrical power (MFC and MDC) or biogas (MEC). In my dissertation, I investigated
the three types of METs mentioned above to: 1) have a better insight on the effect of
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oxygen intrusion on the microbial community structure and performance of air-cathode
MFCs; 2) improve the desalination efficiency of air-cathode MDCs using ion exchange
resins (IXRs); and 3) enrich for extremophilic exoelectrogens from the Red Sea brine
pool using MECs.
The findings from these studies can shape further research aimed at developing more
efficient air-cathode MFCs for practical applications, a more efficient integrated IXRMDC
configuration that can be used as a pre-treatment to RO, and exploring extreme
environments as a source of extremophilic exoelectrogens for niche-specific applications
of METs.
| Date of Award | Dec 2014 |
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| Original language | English (US) |
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| Awarding Institution | - Biological, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
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| Supervisor | Pascal Saikaly (Supervisor) |
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- Microbial Fuel Cells
- Microbial Desalination Cells
- Desalination
- Exoelectrogens
- Microbial Electrolysis Cells
- Water Reuse