Ammonia inhibition and microbial adaptation in continuous single-chamber microbial fuel cells

Abstract Here, we report that a continuous single-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) is applicable to wastewaters containing a high nitrogen concentration using a process of adaptation. Continuous experiments are conducted to investigate the inhibitory effect of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) on the MFC using influents with various concentrations of TAN ranged from 84 to 10,000 mg N L −1 . As the TAN concentration increases up to 3500 mg N L −1 , the maximum power density remains at 6.1 W m −3 . However, as the concentration further increases, TAN significantly inhibits the maximum power density, which is reduced at saturation to 1.4 W m −3 at 10,000 mg N L −1 . We confirm that the adapted electrical performance of a continuous MFC can generate approximately 44% higher power density than the conductivity control. A comparative study reveals that the power densities obtained from a continuous MFC can sustain 7-fold higher TAN concentration than that of previous batch MFCs. TAN removal efficiencies are limited to less than 10%, whereas acetate removal efficiencies remain as high as 93–99%. The increased threshold TAN of the continuous MFC suggests that microbial acclimation in a continuous MFC can allow the electrochemical functioning of the anode-attached bacteria to resist ammonia inhibition.