Sustainable utilization of anthraquinone-rich Rheum officinale as electron shuttle in microbial fuel cell: Strategy for stimulating monohydric phenols degradation and bioelectricity generation

In an aim to completely degrade refractory phenolic compounds for effective wastewater treatment, a sustainable strategy using anthraquinone-rich herbal plant contents as electron shuttles is presented. This study is the first attempt of treating four different chemical structures of monohydric phenols, while simultaneously generate low-carbon electricity in a microbial fuel cell. An electron shuttle-mediated strategy was introduced to investigate the effect of electron shuttle against the degradation of phenolic pollutants and bioelectricity generation, by employing Rheum officinale extract as electron shuttle. Results revealed that there was a two-fold increase in chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, degradation extent of phenol and cresol isomers, output voltage and power density of MFC, compared to the mediator-free MFC system. The degradation of phenol yielded higher COD removal, degradation efficiency, output voltage and power generation over cresol isomers, with and without the application of electron shuttle. A complete removal of COD and phenol, with output voltage of 620.06 mV and power density of 252.49 mW/m2 were obtained. Phenol outperformed cresol isomers with regard to its sole activating hydroxy (−OH) group, lower dipole moment and higher electronic conductivity (8.53 mS/cm). Conversely, meta-cresol exhibited the lowest removal efficiency and power generation, ascribed to greater inductive influence of methyl group in meta position on the dissociation energy of the − OH group. Moreover, detection of the phenolic intermediates by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer analysis was conducted, and detailed degradation pathways were presented.