Waste water re-mediation and power generation using an electrochemical device

由于采用了创新的电化学装置，该项目将通过电化学氧化发电来增加溶解在废水流中的有机材料的价值。由于食品制造、饮料生产、酿酒厂、葡萄酒厂或生物燃料发电机等行业的工业活动，目前产生了大量被糖和其他高能有机分子污染的废水。这些水流代表了这些行业日益严重的问题，因为在市政处置之前必须进行昂贵且缓慢的水清洁程序。有毒化学品和/或敏感的生物清洁工艺的成本为每吨水40美元。本文提出的系统能够显著地节省二氧化碳，并显著地降低水修复的能量需求和相关成本。当前的工业趋势是利用生物质和多步骤过程来发电。将生物质发酵成沼气并随后燃烧以发电是一种间接转化方法，其导致发电率低于10%。然而，这种策略代表了高资本成本和需要长时间的微妙操作条件的需要。微生物燃料电池可以直接从废水中发电。然而，使用细菌来氧化燃料与类似的时间要求问题和非常低的功率产生（<2 mW/cm 2）有关。使用昂贵的催化剂（如Pt）可以获得更大的功率，但由于工业废水中存在的燃料污染物，这些材料很快就会失活。该项目将开发第一个利用溶解在工业废水中的燃料的大功率密度（15 mW/cm 2）燃料电池演示器。沿着减少废水处理所需的功耗，同时创造清洁电力的路线，将设计一个10瓦的原型。由于该项目中提出的独特化学物质，该原型不仅将提供低能耗的水修复系统，而且利用废水中的有机燃料可以以约0.01美元/千瓦时的成本（低于现有发电技术）发电。与其他可再生能源（如风能或太阳能）遭受发电不稳定性的问题不同，这种燃料电池代表了连续和清洁的发电，可以在包括电网平衡或调峰在内的应用中提供电力，从而实现更高比例的绿色能源技术。本项目期间将执行的任务是：i）设计和制造10 W原型; ii）根据水流组成进行现场测试，特别强调确保长期耐用性。

Thanks to an innovative electrochemical device, this project will add value to organic materials dissolved in waste-water streams by generating electricity upon their electrochemical oxidation. Large amounts of waste water contaminated withsugars and other high energy organic molecules are currently generated as a result of the industrial activity in sectors including food manufacturers, beverage production, breweries, wineries or biofuel generators. These water streams represent an increasing problem for those industries as expensive and slow water cleaning procedures are mandatory prior to municipal disposal. Toxic chemicals and/or and sensitive biological cleaning processes deliver cost ranging 40 USD per ton of water. The system here proposed enables significant carbon dioxide savings and a dramatic drop the energyrequirements for water remediation and related costs.The current industrial trend is the generation of electricity from biomass utilizing and multi-step process. The fermentation of biomass to biogas and subsequent combustion to generate electricity is an indirect conversion method that leads to an electricity yield below 10%. Nonetheless, this strategy represents a high capital cost and need of delicate operation conditions that require long time periods. Microbial fuel cells can and directly produce electricity from waste-water. However, the use bacteria to oxidise the fuel is linked to similar time-requirements issues and very low production of power(<2 mW/cm2). Larger power is achieved using expensive catalysts (such as Pt) but, such materials quickly undergo deactivation due to fuel contaminants present in the industrial water streams.This project will develop the first large power density (15 mW/cm2) fuel cell demonstrator utilizing fuels dissolved in industrial waste-waters. A 10W prototype will be designed along the lines of reducing power consumption required forwaste water treatment while creating clean electricity. As a result of the unique chemistry proposed in this project, this prototype will not only provide with a low-energy water-remediation system, the utilization of organic fuels in waste-waterpermits the generation electricity at a cost of about USD0.01/kWh (below existing electricity generation technologies). Unlike other renewable energy sources such as wind or solar suffer which suffer from generation intermittency, this fuel cellrepresents a continuous and clean electricity generation that can provide power in applications including grid balancing or peak shaving which enables a higher proportion of green energy technologies.The range of envisioned applications here described cannot be found in any other device. The tasks to be carried during the present project will be: i) design and manufacture 10W prototype; ii) field testing as a function of the water streamcomposition paying exceptional emphasis in ensuring long term durability.