The Promotion of Ag3po4 Photocatalysis on Methylene Blue Removal and Electricity Generation in Microbial Fuel Cell

The photocatalysis promoted microbial fuel cell (photo-MFC) system is designed to improve the degradation efficiency of recalcitrant organic pollutants in wastewater. In order to avoid the damage of UV light and reactive oxygen species to microorganisms, narrow bandgap Ag 3 PO 4 photocatalyst is chosen and separated with TiN bioanode in anode chamber of MFC. Under visible light illumination, the synergistic effect between photodegradation and biodegradation generates 95.8% of degradation efficiency of MB and 2.90 W·m -2 of the maximum power density. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiencies of 10 mg·L -1 MB in the photo-MFC system are 83.21% and 72.47%, much higher than that of photocatalysis alone (8.67% for COD and 9.65% for TOC). All of the degradation efficiency, power density and mineralization capacity of the photo-MFC system are higher than that of single MFC or photocatalysis. Microbial community analysis shows that Pseudomonas (73.75%) and Geobacter (19.62%) are the main genera of the bioanode in the photo-MFC system. Pseudomonas can degrade various substrates for electricity generation and its abundance is increased by photocatalysis. This photo-MFC coupled system has great potential application in wastewater treatment and energy recovery