Simultaneous phytoremediation of Ni2+ and bioelectricity generation in a plant-microbial fuel cell assembly using water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)

Plant-microbial fuel cells (PMFCs) are an emerging renewable energy source that can utilize wasted organic matter to produce electricity. In this study, the PMFC technology was hybridized to include phytoremediation of nickel. The main purpose of this study was to determine the effect of combining PMFC technology with phytoremediation of nickel. Three systems were designed for this study. System A is a control for PMFC, system B is a control for phytoremediation, and system C is the combination of the two processes. The combined PMFC and phytoremediation system showed that it has a significantly higher power output than the control (system A). The control PMFC had a maximum power density of 0.29 mW/m2, while the hybrid process produced a maximum power density of 0.86 mW/m2 which is three times than the output of the control. In terms of the Ni2+ uptake, the control recorded a metal uptake of 108.79 μg/g dry weight, lower than the Ni2+ uptake of the combined process at 212.42 μg/g dry weight. Overall, the positive results of this study is recommended to be replicated and tested with other plants and heavy metals to establish a new hybrid process of bioelectricity generation and phytoremediation.