Microbial Electrochemical Technologies: Sustainable Solutions for Addressing Environmental Challenges.

Addressing global challenges of waste management demands innovative approaches to turn biowaste into valuable resources. This chapter explores the potential of microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) as an alternative opportunity for biowaste valorisation and resource recovery due to their potential to address limitations associated with traditional methods. METs leverage microbial-driven oxidation and reduction reactions, enabling the conversion of different feedstocks into energy or value-added products.

Boosting ethanol production rates from carbon dioxide in MES cells under optimal solventogenic conditions.

Microbial Electrosynthesis (MES) has been widely applied for acetic acid (HA) production from CO and electricity. Ethanol (EtOH) has a higher market value than HA, and wide application in industry and as a biofuel. However, it has only been obtained sporadically and at low concentrations, probably due to sub-optimal operating conditions.

Bacteria coated cathodes as an in-situ hydrogen evolving platform for microbial electrosynthesis.

Hydrogen is a key intermediate element in microbial electrosynthesis as a mediator of the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO) into added value compounds. In the present work we aimed at studying the biological production of hydrogen in biocathodes operated at - 1.0 V vs.

[NiFe]-hydrogenases are constitutively expressed in an enriched Methanobacterium sp. population during electromethanogenesis.

Electromethanogenesis is the bioreduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to methane (CH4) utilizing an electrode as electron donor. Some studies have reported the active participation of Methanobacterium sp. in electron capturing, although no conclusive results are available.