Event Details

Dr Weiwei Cai is visiting Lancaster Environment Centre from Beijing Jiaotong University. He helps to deliver an Environmental Engineering programme at the LUC Campus at Weihai. During his time in Lancaster he wants to develop research links and will give an overview of his work in this seminar.

Nowadays, the wastewater is now being considered as a resource than a waste for water, food and energy. Use of sewage as an energy source has a long history, among, the anaerobic digestion (AD) process always played the crucial role in turning wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) from an energy consumer into an energy producer. The truth is that the consumed energy is more than gained due to limited implementation of digestion in WWTP. The methanogenesis needs long retention time to complete methane producing from acetate, which was restricted entirely by the growth rate acetotrophic methanogens. A faster growing hydrogenotrophic methanogen was constrained by the finite hydrogen concentration to be predominant in this process, even they have significant advantages in methane production rate. The microbial electrolysis cell as the emerging technology for converting organics into hydrogen provided a coupling strategy to stimulate the enrichment of hydrogenotrophic methanogens. It has been verified as a competent assistant to enhance methane production rate in AD process. The topic will focus on the performance and mechanism of this coupling technology, involving microbial ecology, electrochemical and engineering aspects.