STTR Phase I: Next-Generation Microbial Fuel Cell for Highly Efficient Wastewater Treatment

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力，如果成功的话，将是推进一种新型微生物燃料电池（MFC）系统的开发，该系统从被处理的废水中产生能量，并且可以显着有利于一系列关键行业的废水处理。如果成功开发，该公司的新MFC技术预计将为这些公司提供显着的经济/技术优势，降低其处置成本和废物量，减少处理设施的占地面积，并帮助他们采用更可持续的废水处理工艺。富含有机物的废水的处理是能源密集型的，消耗15千兆瓦（GW）或美国所有电力的3%。然而，这些水含有大约17吉瓦的潜在能量。通过MFC技术捕获一部分这种能量将有利地减少废水处理能量需求，从而导致更经济的处理过程。 该第一阶段研究项目的目标是展示公司专有的低成本MFC阴极材料的可扩展性，其长期性能以及公司MFC设计有效清洁饮料废水的可行性。在规模扩大期间维持MFC反应器性能和降低阴极成本的需要是使用MFC用于废水处理的主要技术挑战。拟议研究的成功完成将导致实验室阴极制造配方转化为更大规模的制造过程。低成本阴极材料和独特的MFC模块化设计的集成有望提供突破性的性能和成本，这将使MFC废水处理工艺的广泛经济可行和模块化商业部署成为可能。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project, if successful, will be to advance the development of a novel microbial fuel cell (MFC) system that generates energy from the wastewaters being treated and that could significantly benefit wastewater treatment for a range of key industries. If successfully developed, the company's new MFC technology is expected to offer significant economic/technical advantages for these companies by reducing their disposal costs and waste volumes, reducing the footprint of treatment facilities, and helping them to adopt a more-sustainable process for wastewater treatment. Treatment of organic-rich wastewater is energy-intensive, consuming 15 GigaWatts (GW) or 3% of all electrical power produced in the United States. However, this water contains roughly 17 GW of potential energy. Capturing a portion of this energy through MFC technology would favorably reduce wastewater treatment energy requirements leading to a more economical treatment process. The objectives of this Phase I research project are to demonstrate the scalability of the company's proprietary, low-cost MFC cathode material, its long-term performance, and the feasibility of the company's MFC design to effectively clean beverage wastewater. The need to maintain MFC reactor performance during scale-up and to reduce cathode cost is a major technical challenge for using MFC for wastewater treatment. The successful completion of the proposed research will result in the translation of the laboratory cathode fabrication recipe to a larger-scale manufacturing procedure. Integration of the low-cost cathode material and the unique MFC modular design is expected to provide breakthrough performance and cost that will enable the broad-based economically viable and modular commercial deployment of an MFC wastewater treatment process.