Advances in Purification of Organic Exhaust via Microbial Electrochemical Systems: Mechanistic Understanding, Performance, and Future Prospects

Industrial exhausts containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) threaten the atmosphere and human health. Purification of organic exhausts by energy-efficient approaches would be necessary for sustainable industrial production. Recently, microbial electrochemical systems (MES) have emerged as an innovative biotechnological solution for removing VOCs in exhaust by combining microbial metabolism and electrochemical processes. MES and its integration with other technologies, i.e., photocatalysis, biotrickling filter, and electrocatalysis have achieved superior performance for VOCs removal. While nonnegligible gaps still exist in this field relating to industrial application. To get full insight into the development of MES for exhaust purification, this review summarizes working principles on VOCs degradation in various MES and the systematic evaluation of their performances. In addition, a critical review of strategies for improving the performance of MES is introduced. Challenges and future directions are identified for VOCs removal by MES in practical application. This review provides a comprehensive summary of the development of MES for VOCs and facilitates the development of more efficient and sustainable pollution control strategies.