Resource recovery from wastewater with Bioelectrochemical Systems

从新的生物资源中生产和回收能源和工业材料减少了我们对地球有限的矿物石化资源的依赖，并有助于英国经济成为低碳经济。从废物中回收能源和有价值的资源（如金属）是一个有吸引力但具有挑战性的前景。有价值的物质通常以非常低的水平存在于废物中，并以高度复杂的混合物存在。这使得以经济上可持续的方式浓缩和净化它们变得非常困难。近年来，我们对微生物如何从废水中发现的有机化合物中提取能量并在此过程中发电的理解取得了令人兴奋的进展。这是在被称为微生物燃料电池（MFC）的设备中实现的。在MFC中，阳极上的微生物氧化有机化合物并在此过程中产生电子。这些电子进入电路并转移到MFC阴极，在那里它们通常与氧反应形成水，在这个过程中保持电流。理论上，MFC可以这样配置，而不是在阴极将氧转化为水，它们可以将金属离子转化为金属或驱动有价值的化学物质的合成。我们的目标是开发这样的系统，利用从废水中收集的能量从含金属的废物流中回收金属，并最终从二氧化碳中合成有价值的化学品。该项目将汇集学术界和工业界的专家，共同设计实现这一目标的方法，并将形成一个研究方案的基础，在该方案中，从事基础研究的科学家和具有将实验室科学转化为工业过程的技能的科学家将共同努力，开发从废物中生产宝贵资源的可持续过程。

Production and recovery of energy and industrial materials from novel biological sources reduces our dependency on the Earth's finite mineral petrochemical resources and helps the UK economy to become a low carbon economy. Recovering energy and valuable resources such as metals from waste materials is an attractive but challenging prospect. The valuable materials are usually present in wastes at very low levels and present as a highly complex mixture. This makes it very difficult to concentrate and purify them in an economically sustainable manner. In recent years there have been exciting advances in our understanding of ways in which microorganisms can extract the energy locked up in the organic compounds found in wastewater and in the process generate electricity. This is achieved in devices known as microbial fuel cells (MFC). In an MFC microorganisms on the anode oxidize organic compounds and in doing so generate electrons. These electrons are passed into an electrical circuit and transferred to the MFC cathode where they usually react with oxygen to form water, sustaining an electric current in the process. In theory MFC can be configured such that, rather than conversion of oxygen to water at the cathode they could convert metal ions to metals or drive the synthesis of valuable chemicals. It is our aim to develop such systems that use energy harvested from wastewater to recover metals from metal-containing waste streams and for the synthesis of valuable chemicals, ultimately from CO2. This project will bring together experts from academia and industry to devise ways in which this can be achieved and will form the foundation of a research programme where scientists working on fundamental research and those with the skills to translate laboratory science to industrial processes will work together to develop sustainable processes for the production of valuable resources from waste.