Biobased energy and product production via biomanufacturing has gained a lot of attention, including advanced sources of energy, waste management, and decarbonization technologies. Integrating different types of organic waste, mostly including municipal solid waste (MSW) and agricultural residues (AR) for bioenergy conversions provides opportunities to secure sustainable waste management and strengthen the circular economy. Biofuel yield is achieved from feedstock deconstruction and upgradation of intermediates products to finished products. This study provides an overview of waste sources and composition and different bioconversion processes, including fermentation process with a special focus on microbial fuel cell (MFC) process and design for energy production from biomass (Dilip Kumar et al., 2022). The recent technology of microbial fuel cell involves various design considerations such as single chambered, double chambered, and integrated MFC coupled with various operational parameters, such as pH, temperature, electrode, substrate type
etc.
No microbial fuel cell does work on the same operating parameters and there is always compatibility problem in treating or using complex biomass. MFC integrated with fermentation technology to degrade the biomass parallel could be a promising option to facilitate the production of various types of bioenergy, such as liquid biofuel, hydrogen, and bioelectricity in a single pipeline. Along with the consolidated MFC-fermentation process, it is necessary to choose efficient microbe species and process design based on the feedstock properties. The consolidated MFC-fermentation process utilizing MSW and AR can be a good strategy for bioenergy conversions. This new process is expected to be a cost-efficient route improving the efficiency of bioenergy conversion, having lower CO
2 emission (40 - 60% faraday Efficiency), and facilitating waste and resources management (Santoro et al., 2017; Srivastava et al., 2022).
Reference
Dilip Kumar, S., Yasasve, M., Karthigadevi, G., Aashabharathi, M., Subbaiya, R., Karmegam, N., & Govarthanan, M. (2022). Efficiency of microbial fuel cells in the treatment and energy recovery from food wastes: Trends and applications - A review. Chemosphere, 287, 132439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132439.
Santoro, C., Arbizzani, C., Erable, B., Leropoulos, L., 2017. Microbial fuel cells: From fundamentals to applications. A review. Journal of Power Sources, pp. 225-244, 356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2017.03.109.
Srivastava, R. K., Boddula, R., Pothu, R., (2022). Microbial fuel cells: Technologically advanced devices and approach for sustainable/renewable energy development. Energy Conversion and Management, 13, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecmx.2021.100160.
