title: Analysis of long-term performance and microbial community structure in bio-cathode microbial desalination cells.
abstract: A microbial desalination cell (MDC) could desalinate salt water without energy consumption and simultaneously generate bioenergy. Compared with an abiotic cathode MDC, an aerobic bio-cathode MDC is more sustainable and is less expensive to operate. In this study, the long-term operation (5500 h) performance of a bio-cathode MDC was investigated in which the power density, Coulombic efficiency, and salt removal rate were decreased by 71, 44, and 27 %, respectively. The primary reason for the system performance decrease was biofouling on the membranes, which increased internal resistance and reduced the ionic transfer and energy conversion efficiency. Changing membranes was an effective method to recover the MDC performance. The microbial community diversity in the MDC anode was low compared with that of the reported microbial fuel cell (MFC), while the abundance of Proteobacteria was 30 % higher. The content of Planctomycetes in the cathode biofilm sample was much higher than that in biofouling on the cation exchange membrane (CEM), indicating that Planctomycetes were relevant to cathode oxygen reduction.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China.|School of Civil Engineering, Yantai University, Yantai, 264000, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Huichao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qinxue
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China.|School of Civil Engineering, Yantai University, Yantai, 264000, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhongyi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China. czqhit@163.com.|School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China. czqhit@163.com.
authors.forename: Zhiqiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nan
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources / Q000382:microbiology; D018441:Biofilms; D057219:Biofouling; D004566:Electrodes; D007477:Ions / Q000378:metabolism; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000378:metabolism; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D007477:Ions; D012965:Sodium Chloride
keywords: Bio-cathode; Biofouling; Desalination; Membranes; Microbial desalination cell (MDC); Microbial diversity