Direct enrichment of perchlorate-reducing microbial community for efficient electroactive perchlorate reduction in biocathodes

Biological reduction of perchlorate (ClO₄ ⁻) has emerged as a promising solution for the removal of perchlorate in contaminated water and soils. In this work, we demonstrate a simple process to enrich perchlorate-reducing microbial communities separately using acetate as electron donor and the municipal aerobic membrane bioreactor sludge as inoculum. Inoculation of cathodes in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with these enrichments, and further electrochemical enrichment at constant resistance operation of the MFCs, led to perchlorate-reducing biocathodes with peak reduction rates of 0.095 mM/day (2 mg/m²/day). Analysis of the microbial diversity of perchlorate-reducing biocathodes using PCR-DGGE revealed unique community profiles when compared to the denitrifying biocathode communities. More importantly, the total time taken for enrichment of the electroactive communities was reduced from several months reported previously in literature to less than a month in this work.