Performance of microbial fuel cell for treating swine wastewater containing sulfonamide antibiotics

The proper treatment of swine wastewater with relatively high concentrations of antibiotics is very important to protect environmental safety and human health. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology shows much promise for removing pollutants and producing electricity simultaneously. A double-chamber MFC was investigated in this study. Synthetic swine wastewater with the addition of sulfonamides was used as the fuels in the anode chamber. Results indicated that COD could be effectively removed (> 95%) and virtually not affect by the presence of sulfonamides in the MFC. A stable voltage output was also observed. The removal efficiencies of sulfamethoxazole (SMX), sulfadiazine (SDZ), and sulfamethazine (SMZ) in the MFC were in the 99.46–99.53%, 13.39–66.91% and 32.84–67.21% ranges, respectively. These totals were higher than those reported for a traditional anaerobic reactor. Hence, MFC revealed strong resistance to antibiotic toxicity and high potential to treat swine wastewater with antibiotics.