Application of (microbial fuel cell) MFC-driven-EAOP (electrochemical advanced oxidation process) in treating recalcitrant wastewater was limited by expensive, low activity and unstable cathodes, difficult to treat pollutants, low treatment capacity and poor effluent quality. A binder-free, high-activity cathode with in-situ formed dimetallic single atom CeCo/gC 3 N 4 (CeCo/CN in abbreviation) in low cost activated carbon (AC) was prepared. In this cathode, the presence of single atom Ce and Co in synergy with gC 3 N 4 and AC contributed to the high activity in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical H 2 O 2 synthesis (1000–2000 mg g −1 h −1 , CeCo/CN), which was 40 times that of AC, where the carbon nitride and Ce/Co played key roles. The MFC-EAOP using this cathode was capable of treating coking wastewater at higher rate of 5.846 kg m −3 d −1 COD (chemical oxygen demand). Stable MFC-EAOP removed 97.2% of COD and 91.8% of TN*(Total Nitrogen) and the effluent met discharge standard. It required no extra electrical current in EAOP. This low-cost, in-situ-grown high activity CeCo/CN/AC cathode could be easily mass-produced to commercialize MFC-EAOP for practical use.
Li et al. (2026) studied this question.