2017 Report

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Director’s Message 2017

Welcome to the 2017 Annual Report of Environmental Biotechnology & Bioenergy Laboratory (EBBL).

In the past year, our team was joined by three new graduate students, five visiting scholars, and several

undergraduate researchers. Our 2017 alumni include two PhD, four MS, and four visiting scholars. As

always, I hope the EBBL experience will benefit their future career and wish them the best luck!

Like last year, EBBL had a great presence and performance at the 2017 WaterJAM: our members

delivered both oral and poster presentations, and have won the first place in poster competitions in

both Water and Wastewater categories. Our members also presented their research on AEESP

conference, WEFTEC, International Conference on Algal Biomass, Biofuels and Bioproducts, VT GSA Research Symposium,

and Borchardt Conference. Several members have received fellowship/awards for individual and/or team.

We have had a very productive year with authoring/co-authoring 30 journal papers and two of them were featured as

Cover Articles. Many of our papers were through collaboration with the researchers worldwide. Our work demonstrated

the first operational strategy for reducing reverse solute flux in forward osmosis by weak electrolysis. We employed a

biological model to understand the interaction among microorganisms, input parameters, and system performance in a

microbial desalination cell. We have also reported several studies of synergistic cooperation between forward osmosis and

bioelectrochemical systems for resource recovery.

2017 is an important year to my own career. In August, I was promoted to a Full Professor after four years at Virginia Tech.

I established the Center for Applied Water Research and Innovation (CAWRI), an industry supported research center, and

became its inaugural director. I took over the position of Director for Virginia Tech Water/Wastewater Treatment Plant

Operators Short School, an annual professional training program. In addition, I joined the editorial teams of Journal of

Environmental Engineering and Science for the Total Environment as an Associate Editor, and became a member of the

Editorial Board for Chemical Engineering Journal. I also acted as the 2017 President for Chinese-American Professors in

Environmental Engineering and Science (CAPEES).

I am excited about what we have accomplished in 2017 and look forward to working with all of you in 2018!

Zhen (Jason) He

Professor

Director of EBBL

Virginia Tech

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People 2017

2017 New Members

Nicholas Benn joined EBBL as a PhD student after

completing his BS and MS at Marquette University. He is

working on anammox decay and application. Nick has also

brought us a great expertise in anaerobic digestion.

Daniele Cecconet joined EBBL as a visiting PhD student.

He is currently a PhD student in Civil Engineering at

University of Pavia (Italy). His research interest is in nitrate

removal from groundwater using BES technology.

Dylan Cowell came to EBBL as a MS student and also a Via

MS Fellow. Dylan completed his BS at Bucknell University

and is currently working on a project about biological

aerated filter startup.

Mathew Ferby joined EBBL as a MS student and a Via MS

Fellow and New Horizon Graduate Fellow, after completing

his BS at NC A&T State University. He is currently working

on nutrient recovery from livestock wastewater.

Nick Lang started to work as an undergraduate

researcher in EBBL on leachate treatment under the

guidance of Syeed. He is a senior in the Civil and

Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Yuan Pan joined EBBL as a visiting PhD student

supported by CSC. He is currently a PhD student at

Northeast University (China). He is interested in

degradation of specific contaminants in BES.

Dr. Zhizhong Su, Professor of Chemical Engineering at

Sanming University (China), joined us as a visiting scholar.

His research interest is in material science for environment

and energy applications. .

Wei Wang joined EBBL as a visiting PhD student supported

by CSC. She is currently a PhD student at China University of

Geosciences Beijing. Her research interest is in material

development for BES technology.

Nan Zhao joined EBBL as a visiting MS student. She is

currently a MS student at Jiangnan University. Her research

interest is in nitrogen removal by using bioelectrochemical

systems.

Short-term Members (< 6 months)

Jenna O'Brien, an undergraduate at VT Biological System

Engineering, spent one semester in EBBL on MFC research

and worked with Akshay.

Carla Corvin of Christiansburg High School participated in

a NSF RET (Research Experience for Teachers) program at

Virginia Tech. She worked with Shiqiang on MFCs.

Michael Johnson, an undergraduate at VT Biological

System Engineering, spent one semester in EBBL on MFC

research and worked with both Shuai and Pranav.

Christian White came from Yale University for a 10-weel

NSF REU program at Virginia Tech. He has coauthored a

CEJ paper with Mohan on resource recovery.

2017 Alumni

Lu Guan completed her study and obtained a MS degree

in environmental engineering. She worked on nitrate

removal from aquaculture wastewater using MFCs. She

will join Michael Baker International as a Civil Associate I.

Dr. Weizhou Jiao, a Professor of Chemical Engineering at

North University of China, has completed his one-year

visit. During this visit, he published two papers in CEJ.

Ke Li completed her study and obtained a MS degree in

environmental science and engineering. She worked on

biohytheane production in MFCs. She plans to become an

engineer upon graduation.

Dr. Changqing Liu, Associate Professor of Chemical

Engineering at Fujian Normal University, has completed

her visiting stay in EBBL. She plans to continue her work

with EBBL after returning to home institute.

Dr. Mohan Qin has completed her PhD at Virginia Tech.

She has been working on osmotic bioelectrochemical

systems and had an outstanding publication record. She

will relocate to New Haven with her husband (Dr. Haoran

Wei).

Nevetha Ramesh received his MS degree in December

2017. She was working on nutrient recovery and

wastewater infrastructure survey. She plans to become an

engineer.

Dr. Tongchai Sriwiriyarat, Associate Professor of

Environmental Engineering at Burapha University

(Thailand) has completed his one-year visit at Virginia

Tech. We appreciate his great help with webpage.

Zhenyu Wu completed his MS study in EBBL and will

continue to a PhD study at University of Notre Dame. He

worked on recovery of struvite from digested swine

wastewater promoted by forward osmosis.

Yuli Yang has completed her 2-year visiting research in

EBBL and returned to Southeast University to obtain her

PhD. She has had a very productive visit with publishing

six journal papers (two more on the way).

Dr. Heyang (Harry) Yuan has completed his research

and obtained a PhD degree at Virginia Tech. He has had a

very broad interest and work in the past four years. He is

to start a postdoc position with Dr. Wen-Tso Liu of UIUC.

Alumni News

Dr. Zheng Ge (PhD ‘15) joined Beijing University of Technology as a

faculty member.

Dr. Jian Li (PhD ’16) got married (in 2016) and joined University of

Nebraska Lincoln as a postdoc in 2017.

Dr. Qingyun Ping (PhD ’16) welcome her second child Sharon Li.

Xuhui Zeng (MS ’16) joined Greeley and Hansen as an engineer.

Zihan Wang (BS ’15) joined Straughan Environmental as an engineer.

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Papers and Presentations 2017

Journal Papers

* Corresponding author # Equal contribution

1. Jiao, W.,* Luo, S., He, Z. and Liu, Y.* (2017) Emulsified

behaviors for the formation of methanol-diesel oil under

high gravity environment. Energy. Vol 141, pp 2387–2396.

2. Iskander, S., Novak, J.T., Brazil, B., and He, Z.* (2017)

Simultaneous energy generation and UV quenchers removal

from landfill leachate using a microbial fuel cell.

Environmental Science and Pollution Research. Vol 24, pp

26040–26048.

3. Yuan, H.,# Sun, S.,# Abu-Reesh, I.M., Badgley, B.D.* and He, Z.*

(2017) Unravelling and reconstructing the nexus of salinity,

electricity and microbial ecology for bioelectrochemical

desalination. Environmental Science & Technology. Vol

51, pp 12672–12682.

4. Iskander, S., Novak, J.T., Brazil, B. and He, Z.* (2017)

Percarbonate oxidation of landfill leachate towards removal

of ultraviolet quenchers. Environmental Science: Water

Research & Technology. Vol 3, pp 1162-1170.

5. Yang, Y., Qin, M., Yang, X.* and He, Z.* (2017) Sustainable

operation of osmotic microbial fuel cells through effective

reproduction of polyelectrolyte draw solutes facilitated by

cathodic pH increase. Journal of Cleaner Production. Vol

168, pp 1143-1149.

6. Liu, H., Zhang, B.,* Yuan, H., Cheng, Y., Wang, S. and He, Z.*

(2017) Microbial reduction of Vanadium (V) in

groundwater: interactions with coexisting common

electron acceptors and analysis of microbial community.

Environmental Pollution. Vol 231, pp 1362-1369.

7. Yang, Y., Chen, M., Zou, S., Yang, X., Long, T.E. and He, Z.*

(2017) Efficient recovery of polyelectrolyte draw solutes in

forward osmosis towards sustainable water treatment.

Desalination. Vol 422, pp 134–141.

8. Luo, S., Jain, A., Aguilera, A. and He, Z.* (2017) Effective

control of biohythane composition through operational

strategies in an innovative microbial electrolysis cell.

Applied Energy. Vol 206, pp 879–886

9. Li, X.,# Sun, S.,# Yuan, H., Badgley, B.D. and He, Z.* (2017)

Mainstream upflow nitritation-anammox system with

hybrid anaerobic pretreatment: long-term performance and

microbial community dynamics. Water Research. Vol 125,

pp 298-308.

10. Zou, S. and He, Z.* (2017) Electrodialysis recovery of

reverse-fluxed fertilizer draw solute during forward

osmosis water treatment. Chemical Engineering Journal.

Vol 330, pp 550-558.

11. Wu, P., Jiang, L.,* He, Z. and Song, Y. (2017) Treatment of

metallurgical industry wastewater for organic removal in

China: status, challenges, and perspectives. Environmental

Science: Water Research & Technology. Vol 3, pp 1015-

1031.

12. Cai, R., Zhang, B.,* Shi, J., Li, M. and He, Z.* (2017) Rapid

photocatalytic decolorization of methyl orange under

visible light using VS4/carbon powder nanocomposites.

ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Vol 5, pp

7690–7699.

13. Qin, M.,# Liu, Y.,# Luo, S., Qiao, R.* and He, Z.* (2017)

Integrated experimental and modeling evaluation of energy

consumption for ammonia recovery in bioelectrochemical

systems. Chemical Engineering Journal. Vol 327, pp 924-

931.

14. Yang, Y., Ren, H., Ben-Tzvi, P., Yang, X.* and He, Z.* (2017)

Optimal interval of periodic polarity reversal under

automated control for maximizing hydrogen production in

microbial electrolysis cells. International Journal of

Hydrogen Energy. Vol 42, pp 20260-20268.

15. Qin, M. and He, Z.* (2017) Resource recovery by osmotic

bioelectrochemical systems towards sustainable

wastewater treatment. Environmental Science: Water

Research & Technology. Vol 3, pp 583-592. (Front Cover)

16. Yang, Y., Li, X., Yang, X. and He, Z.* (2017) Enhanced

nitrogen removal by membrane-aerated nitritation-

anammox in a bioelectrochemical system. Bioresource

Technology. Vol 238, pp 22-29.

17. Jiao, W.,* Qin, Y., Luo, S., He, Z., Feng, Z. and Liu, Y. (2017)

Simultaneous formation of nanoscale zero-valent iron and

degradation of nitrobenzene in wastewater in an impinging

stream-rotating packed bed reactor. Chemical Engineering

Journal. Vol 321, pp 564-571.

18. Zou, S., Qin, M., Morean, Y. and He, Z.* (2017) Nutrient-

energy-water recovery from synthetic sidestream centrate

using a microbial electrolysis cell - forward osmosis hybrid

system. Journal of Cleaner Production. Vol 154, pp 16-25.

19. Iskander, S., Zou, S., Brazil, B., Novak, J.T. and He, Z.*

(2017) Energy consumption by forward osmosis treatment

of landfill leachate for water recovery. Waste

Management. Vol 63, pp 284-291.

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Papers and Presentations 2017

20. Yuan, H. and He, Z.* (2017) Platinum group metal - free

catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction in microbial

electrolysis cells. The Chemical Record. Vol 17, pp 641-

652. (Front Cover)

21. Zou, S. and He, Z.* (2017) Electrolysis-assisted mitigation

of reverse solute flux in a three-chamber forward osmosis

system. Water Research. Vol 115, pp 111-119.

22. Qin, M., Hynes, E.A., Abu-Reesh, I.M. and He, Z.* (2017)

Ammonium removal from synthetic wastewater promoted

by current generation and water flux in an osmotic

microbial fuel cell. Journal of Cleaner Production. Vol 149,

pp 856-862

23. He, Z.* (2017) Development of microbial fuel cells needs to

go beyond "power density". ACS Energy Letters. Vol 2, pp

700-702. (Viewpoint)

24. Sun, H.,# Luo, S.,# Jin. R.* and He, Z.* (2017) Ensemble

engineering and statistical modeling for parameter

calibration towards optimized design of microbial fuel cells.

Journal of Power Sources. Vol 356, pp 288-298.

25. Yang, Y., Qin, M., Yang, X. and He, Z.* (2017) Enhanced

hydrogen production in microbial electrolysis cells by in

situ hydrogen oxidation for self-buffering pH through

periodic polarity reversal. Journal of Power Sources. Vol

347, pp 21-28.

26. Luo, S., Wang, Z.W. and He, Z.* (2017) Mathematical

modeling of the dynamic behavior of an integrated photo-

bioelectrochemical system for simultaneous wastewater

treatment and bioenergy recovery. Energy. Vol 124, pp

227-237.

27. Jiao, W.,* Luo, S., He, Z. and Liu, Y. (2017) Applications of

high gravity technologies for wastewater treatment: a

review. Chemical Engineering Journal. Vol 313, pp 912-

927.

28. Xiang, X., Zou, S. and He, Z.* (2017) Energy consumption of

water recovery from wastewater in a submerged forward

osmosis system with commercial liquid fertilizers as draw

solutes. Separation and Purification Technology. Vol 174,

pp 432-438.

29. Luo, S., Berges, J.A., He, Z.* and Young, E.B.* (2017) Algal -

microbial community collaboration for energy recovery and

nutrient remediation from wastewater in integrated photo-

bioelectrochemical systems. Algal Research. Vol 24, pp

527-539.

30. Surajbhan, S., Abu-Reesh, I.M.,* Yuan, H. and He, Z. (2017)

Bioelectricity generation from treatment of petroleum

refinery wastewater with simultaneous seawater

desalination in microbial desalination cells. Energy

Conversion and Management. Vol 141, pp 101-107.

Conference Presentations * Presenter

1. Zhen He*. Resource Recovery from Wastewater by Using

Bioelectrochemical Systems: Yesterday, Today, and

Tomorrow. The 9th National Conference on Environmental

Chemistry, October 20-23, 2017, Hangzhou, Zhejiang

Province, China.

2. Mohan Qin and Zhen He*. Osmotic Bioelectrochemical

Systems: a New Approach for Nutrient-Energy-Water

(NEW) Recovery from Wastewater. The 15th IWA World

Conference on Anaerobic Digestion. October 17-20, 2017,

Beijing, China.

3. Xiaojin Li* and Zhen He. Domestic Wastewater Treatment

by Mainstream Nitritation-Anammox with Anaerobic

Pretreatment: Long-term Performance and Microbial

Community Dynamics. WEFTEC 2017. September 30-

October 4, 2017, Chicago, IL.

4. Mohan Qin and Zhen He*. Nutrient-energy-water (NEW)

Recovery by Osmotic Bioelectrochemical Systems towards

Sustainable Wastewater Treatment. The 254th ACS National

Meeting. August 20-24, 2017, Washington D.C.

5. Shiqiang Zou and Zhen He*. NEW Recovery from Sidestream

Centrate via a Microbial Electrolysis Cell–Forward Osmosis

Hybrid System. The 2nd International Resource Recovery

Conference. August 5-9, 2017, New York, NY.

6. Yuli Yang*, Xiaoli Yang and Zhen He. pH switchable

polymers (Polyacrylic acid) as a high performance draw

solutes in Forward Osmosis. 2017 AEESP Research and

Education Conference. June 20-22, 2017, Ann Arbor, MI.

7. Zhen He*. NEW Recovery from Wastewater through Synergy

between Bioelectrochemical Systems and Forward

Osmosis. 2017 Borchardt Conference. February 21-22,

2017, Ann Arbor, MI.

8. Zhen He*. NEW Recovery from Wastewater through Synergy

between Bioelectrochemical Systems and Forward

Osmosis. KASUT Research Conference "Changing Paradigms

of Wastewater Treatment - from Wastewater to Resource",

March 27-29, 2017, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Graph from internet

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Progress 2017

Old Logo New Logo

Seriously, is this really EBBL progress?

Sure!We are an important part of

Virginia Tech

We have successfully completed two research

projects in 2017:

National Science Foundation # 1358145

“GOALI: Advancing Membrane

Bioelectrochemical Reactors for Domestic

Wastewater Treatment”.

Qatar National Research Fund NPRP 6 - 289 - 2

– 125 “Development of a Cooperative

Bioelectrochemical System for Wastewater

Treatment and Seawater Desalination”.

A new industrial affiliates program was established

at Virginia Tech, led by Dr. He and Dr. Drew Wang.

This IAP, Center for Applied Water Research and

Innovation (CAWRI: http://www.cawri.cee.vt.edu/),

will conduct industry-directed applied research on

water and wastewater treatment. It has attracted a

great attention from utilities and the inaugural

members include Western Virginia Water Authority

and AlexRenew.

New VT Academic Logo

Promotion

Leachate Update

VT-CAWRI

Dr. He has been promoted to a Full Professor, effective

in August, 2017. He was a tenured associate professor

at Virginia Tech from 2013 to 2017, and prior to that,

he was an assistant professor at the University of

Wisconsin – Milwaukee between 2009 and 2013.

Dr. He joined the editorial teams of Journal of

Environmental Engineering and Science of the Total

Environment as an Associate Editor. He also became a

member of Editorial Board for Chemical Engineering

Journal.

Environmental Research & Education Foundation

(EREF) held a project review at Virginia Tech about

our ongoing leachate project. Both Syeed and Simiao

presented their research of resource recovery from

leachate. The review was well received by the

attendees from both academia and industry.

Projects Completed

Virginia Tech has released a new academic logo. Nice

design, but not great for “academics” (too “athletics”)

Broken Pump Fixed

We are thrilled to have a “Master of Pumps” in EBBL –

Nick Benn. Nick came from Marquette University with a

background in both microbiology and engineering. He

has fixed several broken pumps that had been staying

in the corner of the lab for quite some time. Nick is in

charge of our temperature room, which will be used for

studies of anaerobic treatment such as digestion and

anammox.

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Recognition 2017

Matthew Ferby was named a Via MS Fellow and also a New Horizon Graduate Fellow.

Dylan Cowell was named a Via MS Fellow.

Both Mohan Qin and Heyang Yuan were selected as Via Teaching Fellows.

Heyang Yuan won the runner-up of the Student Research Award of Sigma Xi Virginia Tech Chapter.

Pranav Sai Shanker Sampara won the 3rd Place in the Competition "Viral Imagination".

Shuai Luo presented an invited seminar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences

(IMS), in Morehead City.

Mohan Qin was selected to attend the 1st Youth Forum at Nanjing University, China.

Dr. He received Dean's Award for Faculty Fellow from College of Engineering, Virginia Tech.

Lu Guan, Syeed Md Iskander,

Akshay Jain, and Shiqiang Zou

won the 2nd place in the 2017

Environmental Challenge

International competition

(ECi) at the A&WMA

conference in Pittsburg, PA.

EBBL’s Winning Tradition Continued

at WaterJAM 2017

The EBBL members have actively participated in

WaterJAM 2017:

Shuai Luo, an EBBL PhD student, won the poster

competition in Wastewater category ($1,000);

Shiqiang Zou, an EBBL PhD student, won the poster

competition in Waste category ($1,000);

Xiaojin Li, Simiao Wu, Shuai Luo, Shiqiang Zou, Yuli

Yang have volunteered as Assistant Moderators;

Our members gave multiple oral and poster

presentations;

Nevi was a member of VT team that won the 2nd

place in Student Water Challenge;

Jenna O’Brien received the 2017 VWEA

Undergraduate Scholarship;

Mohan Qin received the 2017 VA AWWA Graduate

Student Scholarship.

The VT team won the 2nd place in the VWEA Student

Design Competition. Three EBBL members, Katherine,

Yishuang, and Pranav, have played a key role in this

team.

On the 33rd VT GSA Research Symposium, Shiqiang won

the Gold Award in Oral Presentation, Syeed won the 1st

place in Interdiscinplinary Scholar Award, and Shuai

won the Silver Award in Poster presentation.

Dr. He delivered invited seminars at Duke

University, Northwestern University, Dalian

University of Technology (Panjin), and Zhejiang

University.

He also gave invited talks on 2017 Borchardt

Conference, KASUT Research Conference

"Changing Paradigms of Wastewater Treatment -

from Wastewater to Resource", and the China’s 9th

National Conference on Environmental Chemistry.

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Research Highlights 2017

Mainstream Anammox Mainstream nitritation-anammox is of strong interest to

energy- and resource-efficient domestic wastewater

treatment. However, there lack in-depth studies of

pretreatment, tests of actual wastewater, and examination of

long-term performance. Herein, an upflow nitritation-

anammox granular reactor has been investigated to treat

primary effluent with a hybrid anaerobic reactor (HAR) as

pretreatment for more than 300 days. This system achieved

92% of COD removal, 75% of which was accomplished by the

HAR, and had an average final effluent COD concentration of

22 mg L-1. More than 90% of ammonium was removed in the

nitritation-anammox reactor, achieving a nitrogen removal

rate of 81.0 g N m-3 d-1 in the last stage. The accumulation of

sulfate-reducing bacteria in the HAR evidenced the effect of

sulfate on COD removal and subsequent nitrogen removal.

Anammox bacteria (predominantly Ca. Jettenia asiatica)

accounted for up to 40.2% of total granular communities, but

their abundance decreased over time in the suspended

communities. The dynamics of major metabolisms and

functional genes involved in nitrogen conversion were

predicted by PICRUSt based on the taxonomic data, providing

more insights into the functions of the microbial communities.

These results have demonstrated the effectiveness and

importance of anaerobic pretreatment to successful

mainstream nitritation-anammox.

Source: Li, X., Sun, S., Yuan, H., Badgley, B.D. and He, Z.* (2017)

Mainstream upflow nitritation-anammox system with hybrid anaerobic

pretreatment: long-term performance and microbial community

dynamics. Water Research. Vol 125, pp 298-308.

Controling Biohythane Composition

Biohythane is a renewable energy fuel composed of methane

and hydrogen gas at a certain ratio. Microbial electrolysis cells

(MECs) have been employed to produce biohythane but the

composition of the produced gas is not well controlled. Herein,

an innovative MEC system was developed at a large scale of 19

L to investigate biohythane production affected by operational

factors. The goal was to understand the interaction between

operation and performance towards the development of

effective strategies for controlling biohythane composition. To

achieve this goal, the performance of this MEC system was

studied by varying the key operational factors including

anolyte recirculation rate, external resistance, and hydraulic

residence time (HRT). It was found that the optimized

operational condition for this MEC system included the

anolyte recirculation rate of 800 mL min-1, external resistance

of 1 ohm, and HRT of 24 h. This condition led to the

biohythane production of 0.64

± 0.06 L day-1 with 16.5 % H2

proportion and positive net

energy recovery of 1.52 ± 0.19

kWh day-1. This is the first

study that attempted to use

operational factors to control

biohythane composition, and

its results will provide

important implications to

formulate control strategies for biohythane production and to

scale up MEC systems towards practical applications.

Source: Luo, S., Jain, A., Aguilera, A. and He, Z.* (2017) Effective control of

biohythane composition through operational strategies in an innovative

microbial electrolysis cell. Applied Energy. Vol 206, pp 879–886.

Nexus of Salinity, Electricity, and Microbes Microbial desalination cells (MDCs) are an emerging concept

for simultaneous water/wastewater treatment and energy

recovery. The key to developing MDCs is to understand

fundamental problems, such as the effects of salinity on

system performance and the role of microbial community and

functional dynamics. Herein, a tubular MDC was operated

under a wide range of salt concentrations (0.05 – 4 M) and the

salinity effects were comprehensively examined. When fed

with 4 M NaCl, the MDC achieve a current density of 300 A m-3

(anode volume). Community analysis and electrochemical

measurements suggested that electrochemically active

bacteria Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter transferred

electrons extracellularly via electron shuttles and the

consequent ion migration led to high anode salinities and

conductivity that favored their dominance. Predictive

functional dynamics and Bayesian networks implied that the

taxa putatively not capable of EET (e.g., Bacteroidales and

Clostridiales) might indirectly contribute to

bioelectrochemical desalination. By integrating the Bayesian

network with logistic regression, current production was

successfully predicted from taxonomic data. This study has

demonstrated uncompromised system performance under

high salinity and

thus has

highlighted the

potential of MDCs

as an energy-

efficient technology

to address water-

energy challenges.

The statistical modeling approach developed in this study

represents a significant step toward understating microbial

communities and predicting system performance in

engineered biological systems.

Source: Yuan, H., Sun, S., Abu-Reesh, I.M., Badgley, B.D.* and He, Z.* (2017)

Unravelling and reconstructing the nexus of salinity, electricity and

microbial ecology for bioelectrochemical desalination. Environmental

Science & Technology. Vol 51, pp 12672–12682.

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Contact 2017

Dr. Zhen (Jason) He

Durham Hall, RM 403

1145 Perry St.

Blacksburg, VA 24060

Office phone: 540-231-1346

Email: zhenhe@vt.edu

EBBL

Hancock Hall, RM 204 & 206

490 Old Turner St.

Blacksburg, VA 26040

Lab webpage: www.ebbl.cee.vt.edu