Efficiency of microbial fuel cells in the treatment and energy recovery from food wastes: Trends and applications - A review.

The rising global population and their food habits result in food wastage and cause an obstacle in its treatment and disposal. Due to the rapid shift in the lifestyle of the human population and urbanization, almost one-third of the food produced is wasted from various sectors like domestic sources, agricultural sectors, and industrial sectors. These food resources squandered are rich in organic biomolecules which can cause complications upon direct disposal in the environment. Conventional disposal methods like composting, landfills and incineration demand high costs besides causing severe environmental and health issues. To overcome these demerits of the conventional methods and to avoid the loss of rich organic food resources, there is an immediate need for a sustainable and eco-friendly solution for the valorization of the food wastes. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are gaining attention, due to their ideal approach in the production of electricity and parallel treatment of organic food wastes. The MFCs are significant as an innovative approach using microorganisms and oxidizing the organic food wastes into bio-electricity. In this review, the recent advancements and practices of the MFCs in the field of food waste treatment and management along with electricity production are discussed. The major outcome of this work highlights the setting up of MFC for the treatment of higher volumes of food waste residues and enhancing the bioelectricity production in an optimal condition. For further improvements in the food waste treatments using MFCs, greater understanding and more research needs are to be focused on the commercialization, different operational modes, operational types, and low-cost fabrication coupled with careful examination of scale-up factors.

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