Recent Advances in Scaling Up Microbial Fuel Cell Systems for Wastewater Treatment, Energy Recovery, and Environmental Sustainability

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a promising technology for simultaneously treating wastewater and recovering energy, yet scaling them from lab prototypes to practical systems poses persistent challenges. This review addresses the scale-up gap by systematically examining recent pilot-scale MFC studies from multiple perspectives, including reactor design configurations, materials innovations, treatment performance, energy recovery, and environmental impact. The findings show that pilot MFCs reliably achieve significant chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal (often 50–90%), but power densities remain modest (typically 0.1–10 W m−3)—far below levels needed for major energy generation. Key engineering advances have…

• MO
  Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation