The efficient treatment of breeding wastewater by an electroactive microbial community in microbial fuel cell

Breeding wastewater is still challenging to be treated due to its large emissions, high contents of organic pollutants and various pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, breeding wastewater was efficiently treated by an electroactive microbial community screened from the native microorganisms of the breeding wastewater in microbial fuel cells (MFC). Good power generation (power density of 438.22 mW m(-2) and open-circuit voltage of 746 mV) and high pollutants removal efficiency (chemical oxygen demand of 70.05% and ammonia nitrogen of 77.43%) were obtained during the breeding wastewater treatment process in MFC. The morphology characterization demonstrated that the screened electroactive microbial community was able to form a thick biofilm on the anode of the MFC. Microbial community analysis revealed that the microorganisms associated with electricity generation and pollutant degradation were significantly increased such as Proteiniphilum from 4.5% to 11%, Prolixibacteraceae from 0.06% to 8.0%, and Novosphingobium from 0.09% to 4.5%, while the pathogenic microorganisms were greatly decreased such as Paeniclostridium from 33.3% to 0.03%, Romboutsia from 29.2% to 0.01%, and Corynebacterium from 8.4% to 0.15% during breeding wastewater treatment process. These results indicated that the MFC constructed using the screened electroactive microbial community may be a sustainable method for breeding wastewater treatment with efficient power generation, organic pollutant degradation, and pathogenic microorganism removal.