Techno-economical evaluation and life cycle assessment of microbial electrochemical systems: A review

In the last two decade, there is extensive research carried out for improving the microbial electrochemical systems (MES) performance in terms of both wastewater treatment and product generation along with its upscaling for industrial application. During the scale-up of these technologies, various economic problems regarding process feasibility have been investigated. This economic feasibility needs to be valued in terms of efficiency and environmental sustainability, because of which these technologies have been studied in the first place. A systematic review was conducted highlighting both parameters, i.e., the economics and environmental sustainability in the form of techno-economic assessment of these systems and also showing a comparative study between microbial fuel cells, microbial electrolysis cells, microbial electrosynthesis cells, and microbial desalination cells, against the conventional technologies on the basis on these parameters. Based on the study, the conventional technologies require less operational and maintenance cost but also less environmentally sustainable in comparison to these MES. The most common tool for the assessment of the environmental performance of a process or product is the life cycle analysis. This article summarizes the techno-economic assessment of microbial fuel cells, Microbial electrolysis cells, microbial electrosynthesis cells, and microbial desalination cells. This article concludes that further research is required in terms of scale-up and reducing the overall costs of these MES for efficiently incorporating for practical usage.