title: Separators used in microbial electrochemical technologies: Current status and future prospects.
abstract: Microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) are emerging green processes producing useful products from renewable sources without causing environmental pollution and treating wastes. The separator, an important part of METs that greatly affects the latter's performance, is commonly made of Nafion proton exchange membrane (PEM). However, many problems have been identified associated with the Nafion PEM such as high cost of membrane, significant oxygen and substrate crossovers, and transport of cations other than protons protons and biofouling. A variety of materials have been offered as alternative separators such as ion-exchange membranes, salt bridges, glass fibers, composite membranes and porous materials. It has been claimed that low cost porous materials perform better than PEM. These include J-cloth, nylon filter, glass fiber mat, non-woven cloth, earthen pot and ceramics that enable non-ion selective charge transfer. This paper provides an up-to-date review on porous separators and plots directions for future studies.
authors.affiliation: Fuel Cell Institute, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Siti Mariam
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Daud
authors.affiliation: Fuel Cell Institute, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea; State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China. Electronic address: bhkim@ukm.edu.my.
authors.forename: Byung Hong
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Fuel Cell Institute, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mostafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghasemi
authors.affiliation: Fuel Cell Institute, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Wan Ramli Wan
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Daud
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources / Q000639:trends*; D004563:Electrochemistry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends*; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D016062:Porosity
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial
keywords: Earthenware; Inorganic separator; Microbial electrochemical technologies; Porous separator; Proton exchange membrane