Genesis and recent advancement in microbial fuel cells: Wastewater treatment and resource recovery perspectives

Present water-energy crisis and wastewater treatment issues can be addressed using advanced microbial fuel cells (MFC). It can provide sustainable solutions for treatment of wastewater ranging from simple sugars to complex industrial effluent along with simultaneous energy recovery. Such technology provide flexible platform for different electrochemical reactions and hence can be found useful for contaminant removal, nutrient recovery, by-product recovery, biosensor application and as an external power source to operate different electronic appliances. Additionally, the performance of the MFC system can be improved with integrating it with a conventional wastewater treatment system. This book chapter focused on economic sustainability and wastewater treatment along with resource recovery from the MFC system.