combined effects of enrichment procedure and non-fermentable or fermentable co-substrate on performance and bacterial community for pentachlorophenol degradation in microbial fuel cells

combined effects of enrichment procedure and non-fermentable acetate or fermentable glucose on system performance and bacterial community for pentachlorophenol (pcp) degradation in microbial fuel cells (mfcs) were determined in this study. co-substrate and pcp were added into mfcs either simultaneously or sequentially. simultaneous addition with glucose (simultaneous-glucose) achieved the shortest acclimation time and the most endurance to heavy pcp shock loads. species of alphaproteobacteria (simultaneous-acetate, 33.9%; sequential-acetate, 31.3%), gammaproteobacteria (simultaneous-glucose, 44.1%) and firmicutes (sequential-glucose, 31.8%) dominated the complex systems. the genus sedimentibacter was found to exist in all the cases whereas spirochaetes were merely developed in simultaneous-acetate and simultaneous-glucose. while epsilonproteobacteria were only absent from sequential-acetate, simultaneous-glucose benefited to the evolution of lentisphaerae. these results demonstrate simultaneous-glucose is a strategy for efficient system performance and the microbiological evidence can contribute to improving understanding of and optimizing pcp degradation in mfcs.