Bioelectrochemical and Anaerobic Processes for Sustainable Wastewater Valorization: Mechanisms, Resource Recovery, and Circular Economy Integration

Abstract

Conventional anaerobic digestion (AD), despite its proven efficiency in wastewater treatment, faces limitations due to energy requirements and extended hydraulic retention times, with methane yields from waste-activated sludge rarely exceeding 50% of the stoichiometric maximum at retention times of 20 days or more and with the resulting biogas containing 50–75% methane. It also has a constrained capacity for high-grade resource valorization except energy in the form of methane-enriched biogas. This review focuses on bioelectrochemical systems (BES) and hybrid configurations as promising alternatives for sustainable wastewater management. BES mechanisms, including microbial fuel cells (MFC), microbial electrolysis cells (MEC), and microbial electrosynthesis (MES), are analyzed in detail, with emphasis on their capacity to directly convert organic pollutants into electricity or high-value chemicals (hydrogen, acetate) with minimal external energy input. Key advantages include potential electrical energy production, significantly reduced excess sludge production, and high level of waste mineralization. Reported performance reaches power densities of 2203 and 4990 mW/m2 for sludge-fed microbial fuel cells and up to 26,680 mW/m2 in algae-assisted configurations, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of up to 92%, and excess sludge production of 0.09 g/g COD against 0.159 g/g COD for anaerobic digestion treating the same stream. Limitations in terms of scalability and capital costs remain barriers to industrial implementation. Special attention is given to hybrid configurations integrating BES with AD through direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET), which accelerates biodegradation kinetics and enhances resource recovery pathways; compiled MEC-AD data report methane increases of about 3–228% over unpolarized controls, and in a 1.7 L reactor treating alkaline-thermally pretreated waste-activated sludge, the optimum of 0.6 V raised the methane yield from 213.2 ± 9.5 to 308.7 ± 5.9 mL CH4/g COD removed. These integrated approaches close material and energy cycles, enabling the simultaneous recovery of energy, nutrients (N, P), and bio-chemicals, transforming wastewater treatment plants into zero-waste biorefineries aligned with circular economy principles.