trode. Naturally occurring bacteria in the wastewater consume the organic material and produce electricity.
The researchers, who also included Xiaoxin Cao, Xia Huang, Peng Liang, Kang Xiao, Yinjun Zhou and Xiaoyuan Zhang, at Tsinghua University, Beijing, changed the microbial fuel cell by adding a third chamber between the two existing chambers and placing certain ion specific membranes -- membranes that allow either positive or negative ions through, but not both -- between the central chamber and the positive and negative electrodes. Salty water to be desalinated is placed in the central chamber.
Seawater contains about 35 grams of salt per liter and brackish water contains 5 grams per liter. Salt not only dissolves in water, it dissociates into positive and negative ions. When the bacteria in the cell consume the wastewater it releases charged ions -- protons -- into the water. These protons cannot pass the anion membrane, so negative ions move from the salty water into the wastewater chamber. At the other electrode protons are consumed, so positively charged ions move from the salty water to the other electrode chamber, desalinating the water in the middle chamber.
The desalination cell releases ions into the outer chambers that help to improve the efficiency of electricity generation compared to microbial fuel cells.
"When we try to use microbial fuel cells to generate electricity, the conductivity of the wastewater is very low," said Logan. "If we could add salt it would work better. Rather than just add in salt, however in places where brackish or salt water is already abundant, we could use the process to additionally desalinate salty water, clean the wastewater and dump it and the resulting salt back into the ocean."
Because the salt in the water helps the cell generate electricity, as the central chamber becomes less salty, the conductivity decreases and the desalination and electrical production decreases,
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| Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer aem1@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State Source:Eurekalert |
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