TY - JOUR
T1 - Organotrophic acid-tolerant microorganisms enriched from an acid mine drainage affected environment as inoculum for microbial fuel cells
AU - Leiva-Aravena, Enzo
AU - Leiva, Eduardo
AU - Zamorano, Vasty
AU - Rojas, Claudia
AU - Regan, John M.
AU - Vargas, Ignacio T.
N1 - Funding Information:
The analytical assistance of Mauricio Medel and Fernanda Carrasco from the Departamento de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Ambiental (DIHA)at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Dr. Pablo Pastén for allowing access to the laboratory of water chemistry and geochemistry in the DIHA and Javiera Anguita and Natalia Tapia for their assistance with reactor performance measurements. This work was supported by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT)through the FONDECYT projects 3140515/2013; 1160917/2016 and CONICYT/FONDAP 15110020.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research ( CONICYT ) through the FONDECYT projects 3140515/2013 ; 1160917/2016 and CONICYT /FONDAP 15110020 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/8/15
Y1 - 2019/8/15
N2 - Exoelectrogenic communities for bioelectrochemical systems such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs)are usually enriched from microbial consortia of municipal wastewater treatment plants and other circumneutral and mesophilic environments. Thus, the study of extreme environments offers an enormous potential to find new exoelectrogens and expand the functionality and applications of MFC technology. In this study, a microbial community previously enriched from acid mine drainage (AMD)sediments was used as inoculum in single-chamber MFCs operated at pH 3.7. The power obtained from the AMD-derived inoculum reached 1 mW m −2 (27.1 ± 7.8 mV with 1 kΩ external resistance), which compares to previous MFC studies operated under low-pH conditions. Additionally, polarization curves showed power-generation levels of 2.4 ± 0.2 mW m −2 and 0.4 ± 0.3 mW m −2 , which were associated with the different inoculum sources: MFCs operated with sulfate concentrations of ~2000 and < 25 mg L −1 , respectively. Microbial characterization performed at the end of the operation showed that both anodic and cathodic biofilm communities were highly dominated by the Proteobacteria phylum (>72% of 16S rRNA gene sequences), followed by Firmicutes (4–11%). Furthermore, the anodic microbial communities of the best-performing reactors were dominated by the Delftia genus (phylum Proteobacteria), which was recently identified as a taxon including exoelectrogenic candidates. These findings expand the literature of low-pH operated MFCs and acid-tolerant exoelectrogens, and also represent a starting point to apply this technology to treat acidic organic loads.
AB - Exoelectrogenic communities for bioelectrochemical systems such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs)are usually enriched from microbial consortia of municipal wastewater treatment plants and other circumneutral and mesophilic environments. Thus, the study of extreme environments offers an enormous potential to find new exoelectrogens and expand the functionality and applications of MFC technology. In this study, a microbial community previously enriched from acid mine drainage (AMD)sediments was used as inoculum in single-chamber MFCs operated at pH 3.7. The power obtained from the AMD-derived inoculum reached 1 mW m −2 (27.1 ± 7.8 mV with 1 kΩ external resistance), which compares to previous MFC studies operated under low-pH conditions. Additionally, polarization curves showed power-generation levels of 2.4 ± 0.2 mW m −2 and 0.4 ± 0.3 mW m −2 , which were associated with the different inoculum sources: MFCs operated with sulfate concentrations of ~2000 and < 25 mg L −1 , respectively. Microbial characterization performed at the end of the operation showed that both anodic and cathodic biofilm communities were highly dominated by the Proteobacteria phylum (>72% of 16S rRNA gene sequences), followed by Firmicutes (4–11%). Furthermore, the anodic microbial communities of the best-performing reactors were dominated by the Delftia genus (phylum Proteobacteria), which was recently identified as a taxon including exoelectrogenic candidates. These findings expand the literature of low-pH operated MFCs and acid-tolerant exoelectrogens, and also represent a starting point to apply this technology to treat acidic organic loads.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.003
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.003
M3 - Article
C2 - 31078855
AN - SCOPUS:85065261078
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 678
SP - 639
EP - 646
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -