Biogenic C-doped titania templated by cyanobacteria for visible-light photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B

Cyanobacteria, which occurred in eutrophic water harvest solar light to carry out photosynthesis with high efficiency. In this work, cyanobacteria （Microcystis sp.） were used as biotemplate to synthesize titania structure. The synthesized titania sample had similar morphology to that of the original template in spite of the fragile unicellular structures and extremely high water content of cyanobacterial cells. Incorporation of biogenic C, as well as the morphology inherited from biotemplate improved visible- light absorbance of the titania structure. The sample exhibited higher visible-light photocatalytic activity than commercial titania photocatalyst Degussa P25 for Rhodamine B （RhB） degradation. Compared with those C-doped titania photocatalysts prepared by other methods, cyanobacteria templated titania photocatalyst offer some potential for competitive advantages. The reported strategy opened up a new use for the cyanobacteria. It could also be used for titania in applications such as treatment of polluted water, dye-sensitized solar cells, or other regions.

Enhanced methane production in an anaerobic digestion and microbial electrolysis cell coupled system with co-cultivation of Geobacter and Methanosarcina

The anaerobic digestion（AD）and microbial electrolysis cell（MEC）coupled system has been proved to be a promising process for biomethane production.In this paper,it was found that by co-cultivating Geobacter with Methanosarcina in an AD–MEC coupled system,methane yield was further increased by 24.1%,achieving to 360.2 m L/g-COD,which was comparable to the theoretical methane yield of an anaerobic digester.With the presence of Geobacter,the maximum chemical oxygen demand（COD）removal rate（216.8 mg COD/（L·hr））and current density（304.3 A/m3）were both increased by 1.3 and 1.8 fold compared to the previous study without Geobacter,resulting in overall energy efficiency reaching up to 74.6%.Community analysis demonstrated that Geobacter and Methanosarcina could coexist together in the biofilm,and the electrochemical activities of both were confirmed by cyclic voltammetry.Our study observed that the carbon dioxide content in total gas generated from the AD reactor with Geobacter was only half of that generated from the same reactor without Geobacter,suggesting that Methanosarcina may obtain the electron transferred from Geobacter for the reduction of carbon dioxide to methane.Taken together,Geobacter not only can improve the performance of the MEC system,but also can enhance methane production.