Investigation on bio- cathode MDC performance for desalination and waste water treatment

Fresh water shortage has become one of the major challenges for societies worldwide. Polluted water treatment and brackish water desalination could be a correct defense mechanism in this situation. In the present study, Microbial Desalination Cell (MDC) performance were tested in laboratory scale to investigate the desalination process and waste water treatment. The experiments where designed in a three chamber reactor using activated sludge as bio-catholyte and synthetic wastewater in four different hydraulic retention times and 35 g/l NaCl Concentration in two functional mods (batch & continuous). According to the results maximal salt removal and EC reduction rate of about Was obtained in continuously fed mode, respectively. The anolyte PH in both batch and continues modes dropped from 7 to 6.47 & 6.48 Respectively. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal value in the Continuous mode were %61 & %65 in the anolyte and catholyte respectively, higher than those of fed-batch MDC. Also the result of examining the statistical relationship between system efficiency (salt removal, COD removal and EC reduction rate) and hydraulic retention time and also between system efficiency and hydraulic flow and indicated that there is significance level (Sig< 0.05) so significant direct relationship between the above parameters.