Page 213 - Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

Generation of bioenergy from 8

industrial waste using microbial
fuel cell technology for the

sustainable future

K. Senthilkumar and M. Naveen Kumar
Department of Chemical Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode, India

8.1 Introduction

Fossil fuels were one of the major sources of energy in recent times. Since
availability of fossil fuel reserves is finite, one of the greatest challenges in this cen-
tury is to manage the global energy demands necessary to maintain the growth of
economic and the population. Combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum,
oil, and natural gas for generation of energy and various industrial processes dis-
charges a huge amount of toxic gasses such as CO, CO 2 ,SO x ,NO x , and CH 4 into
atmosphere, which, in turn, causes atmospheric pollution. Majority of the pollution
occurs due to the rapid industrialization without any sustainable development. That
is environmental resources (natural, cultural, and socioeconomic) are depleted by
industry and their activities on environment. Though industrialization is important
for the development of our nation, it should not be at the expenses of depletion of
natural resources.
Any form of industrial wastes discharged into the environment is polluting the
entire ecosystem due to its nature of toxicity. It forms the polluting environment in
any form of pollution such as air, water, soil, and noise. To overcome all these
drawbacks, zero effluent discharge systems (ZEDS) are introduced, but currently,
this is not used in many industries because of the high initial cost and also mainte-
nance cost. However, ZEDS concept is profitable for industries because of its capa-
bility to recover the freshwater from industrial wastewater, so recovered water
would be used for industrial cooling and cleaning purposes.
Since the problems on resources should be pointed out for the next-generation
development, in this case, we need to develop and implementing new technology
for industrial waste treatment. Conventional treatment method has more difficulties
in operation. Recently, for industrial waste treatment the most promising and fasci-
nating technology is microbial fuel cell (MFC). Because of its low initial cost, easy
operation, and low maintenance cost, MFC plays an important role in producing
bioenergy, value-added chemicals, and fuels. The utilization of MFC gives energy
in the form of electricity in consistent, fresh, resourceful manners which use
Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818996-2.00008-9
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