Resource recovery from wastewater by bioelectrochemical systems

Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are an emerging treatment concept that have been extensively studied for energy-efficient wastewater treatment. Several valuable resources can be recovered during BES-based treatment, including energy, nutrient, and water. These processes are driven by microorganisms, generated electricity, osmotic pressure, and ionic migration. Technique integration into BES-based treatment could further improve the resource recovery efficiency. This chapter was to comprehensively introduce the working mechanisms and recent development of BES application, and give details about the development of system integration on energy, nutrient, and water recovery, respectively. Energy recovery needs uniform parameters to achieve mutual comparison and reduction of energy consumption to increase the energy recovery. Nutrient recovery mainly focuses on recycling valuable contaminants back from the wastewater, and nitrogen and phosphorus are key components to be recycled. BES technique integration could migrate nitrogen and phosphorus ions to be recovered. Water recovery could be achieved by combining BES and membrane-related techniques together, to drive water osmosis for water recovery. This chapter summarizes the recent technique update and gives outlook for the future development as valuable guideline.