Wastewater Engineering and Advances in Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) as a Sustainable Platform Technology for Bioenergy

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to submit manuscripts to the Special Issue of our journal, focusing on "Wastewater Engineering and Advances in Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) as a Sustainable Platform Technology for Bioenergy". Water scarcity and energy demand are two global issues that must be concurrently addressed in order to achieve sustainable development. This Special Issue seeks to showcase the latest research, developments, and applications related to this vital field of environmental engineering/wastewater engineering, and thus facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas within the engineering and scientific community.

Wastewater engineering is an important multidisciplinary field of environmental engineering that deals with the design, construction and operation of wastewater treatment works and wastewater treatment plants. In recent years, wastewater treatment has become an increasingly pressing issue, owing to population growth, urbanisation, and industrialisation. Wastewater treatment and energy production are two industries with the potential to address both issues. Wastewater engineering is a dynamic discipline involving the removal of pollutants and the recovery of resources from wastewater. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a novel technology that employs microbes to produce electricity from wastewater. MFCs could be utilised as a sustainable platform technology for bioenergy production. The development of efficient and cost-effective technologies that can remove pollutants from wastewater and generate renewable energy simultaneously has thus become a significant global priority. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) represent one such promising technology that utilises the metabolic activities of microorganisms to recover energy from wastewater. MFCs offer an eco-friendly, sustainable, and renewable energy source, and their integration with wastewater treatment has been shown to be more effective than traditional techniques, by removing pollutants more efficiently and generating bioelectricity simultaneously. In this Special Issue, we encourage authors to submit original research articles, review papers, and short communications that address the various aspects related to the development and application of MFCs as a sustainable platform technology for bioenergy. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

- MFC technology development for wastewater treatment and bioenergy production;

- Integrated approaches for wastewater treatment and resource recovery using MFCs;

- Microbial community structures in MFCs;

- Optimisation of MFC designs and operation;

- Process control and monitoring within MFCs;

- Wastewater treatment efficiency and performance of MFCs;

- Modelling and simulation of MFCs;

- MFC-based biosensors for wastewater quality monitoring and control;

- Integration of MFCs with other bioenergy technologies;

- Development of advanced MFC electrode materials;

- Advances in life-cycle assessment (LCA) of MFCs

- MFCs for bioelectricity production;

- MFC-based systems for energy recovery from waste streams;

- Techno-economic analysis of MFCs for commercial-scale wastewater treatment and bioenergy 31 production.

The fields of wastewater engineering and MFCs can provide a sustainable solution for water conservation, energy generation, and resource recovery. The purpose of this Special Issue is to present the most recent research on MFCs as a sustainable platform technology for bioenergy production and effluent treatment. We welcome submissions from researchers in academia, industry, and government working in any of these areas. Manuscripts will undergo peer review and evaluation based on scientific quality, clarity, and relevance to the theme of this Special Issue. We believe that the publication of high-quality research papers in this Special Issue will help advance the field of wastewater engineering and MFCs as a sustainable platform technology for bioenergy, bridging the water-waste-energy nexus. The engineering and scientific community will benefit from a better understanding of the underlying scientific principles, design, and operation of MFCs as well as insights into their potential applications and limitations.

We do hope that you will join us in this exciting initiative and submit your original contributions to this Special Issue. We look forward to receiving, reviewing, and publishing your outstanding research work.

Dr. Kiran Tota-Maharaj
Prof. Dr. Colin D. Hills
Dr. Sandeep Singh
Dr. Denver Cheddie
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pollutants is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• wastewater engineering
• microbial fuel cells (MFCs)
• bioenergy
• biosensors
• resource recovery
• waste streams
• electrochemical characterisation