{"id":1104,"date":"2019-03-12T06:39:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T06:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:20:20","slug":"microbial-desalination-technology-could-change-the-game-for-water-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/microbial-desalination-technology-could-change-the-game-for-water-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Microbial Desalination Technology Could Change The Game for Water Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><i>Summary:<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: Freshwater is scarce these days, with less than 3% available for us to use. A big chunk of that, 67% to be exact, is locked away and we can't get to it. That's why we need smart ways to clean the 97% of saltwater in our oceans, so millions worldwide can have clean drinking water. Desalination has really caught our attention lately. It's great at turning seawater and wastewater into fresh, usable water. People are putting more money into research to make it more energy efficient and easier for everyone to use. One cool technology is Microbial Desalination Cells, or MDCs. They can power equipment with less wasted energy. We're going to look at their potential, based on a study by Dr. Surajbhan Sevda and his team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Description:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: Desalination isn't just for drinking water anymore. We use these technologies for all sorts of things, like making products, treating wastewater, and creating solutions. A big area where this tech really shines is treating petroleum wastewater. Many countries now insist on wastewater treatment to keep nasty contaminants out of our environment. This industrial water, called brine, is packed with salts and chemicals. If industries ignore wastewater rules, they could lose their licenses, and no one wants that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The petroleum industry:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: Petroleum refinery wastewater, or PRW, is some of the dirtiest industrial wastewater out there. It's loaded with pollutants and poses a huge environmental risk. So, treating it is a must. The problem is, traditional methods, like regular reverse osmosis desalination, use a lot of energy. We really need to find sustainable solutions for the petroleum industry's wastewater issues. That's where Microbial Desalination Cells, MDCs, come in. They're energy efficient and can treat both wastewater and seawater.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What is an MDC?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: A Microbial Desalination Cell is a biological electrochemical system. It uses electroactive bacteria to power the desalination process right there, building on natural anode and cathode gradients. This creates a kind of internal supercapacitor, which is super helpful for water treatment. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The MDC technology<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: This is a pretty new system that brings together microbial fuel cells and electrodialysis. It treats wastewater, desalinates water, and even produces renewable energy. Because it needs less energy and is eco-friendly, labs worldwide are really paying attention to it. It's a sustainable choice you can use on its own, or combine it with other wastewater and saltwater treatments, like <\/span><<span style=\"font-weight: reverse osmosis<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: or electrodialysis. We've already seen improvements to the basic MDC tech, with modified versions like Bicathode MDCs, stacked MDCs, and recirculation MDCs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Promising results:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: In one study focused on PRW, researchers used the new MDC technology to treat wastewater. Here's what they found:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: The MDC removed the most COD, a measure of water pollution, by just adding 20 g\/L of Sodium Chloride solution.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: Changing the catholyte from phosphate buffer solution (PBS) to acidified water boosted COD removal from 64% to 70.5%.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: For seawater, the MDC with PBS hit a maximum efficiency of 19.9%.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: Acidified water turned out to be a very effective catholyte for producing specific energy.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: When desalinating seawater, the system produced 32.6 W h\/kg COD of energy.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: This research clearly showed that PRWs can act as an anodic substrate in MDCs to generate energy and desalinate seawater.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: The study's bottom line was clear: MDCs can successfully treat petroleum refinery wastewater, create electricity (bioelectricity), and <\/span><<span style=\"font-weight: desalinate saltwater<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Technologies like MDCs are essential for a sustainable future. We need to keep developing energy-efficient solutions that deliver results as good as traditional desalination methods. Only then can we truly build a world that's safe for us and our environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Author\u2019s Bio:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: AMPAC USA builds leading-edge reverse osmosis water treatment systems. For over 30 years, we've given customers worldwide solutions to their water treatment issues. With a long, impressive track record, AMPAC works hard to improve reverse osmosis systems for better quality and cost savings.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>References:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><<span style=\"font-weight: https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0011916415003422<\/span><\/p>\n<p><<span style=\"font-weight: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Microbial_desalination_cell<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Related reading: <Desalination Technology, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/what-is-seawater-desalination-and-how-does-a-seawater-desalination-system-work\/\">What is Seawater Desalination, and How Does a Seawater Desalination System Work?<\/a>, <Future of Water Treatment: Trends in Solar-Powered Desalination Technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One such technology is the MDCs, Microbial Desalination Technology that can be used to power up the equipment with less wastage of energy. This article explores its potential based on a study by Dr. Surajbhan Sevda et al.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,29],"tags":[177,178],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industrial-reverse-osmosis","category-water-treatment","tag-mdc-technology","tag-microbial-desalination-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89531,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/89531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}