- Microbial Electrolysis of Wastewater for Low- Carbon Hydrogen Recovery: An Illustrative Food- Energy-Water Nexus Assessment

This article presents a simulated empirical assessment in Environmental Engineering, Biotechnology, and Renewable Energy. The simulated experiment covered 120 operating days with 480 reactor-day observations and influent COD ranging from 1,700 to 3,200 mg/L. A simulated continuous-flow wastewater dataset represented a high-strength food- processing effluent with variable chemical oxygen demand, conductivity, pH, and organic loading. Four treatment configurations were compared: conventional aerobic treatment and microbial electrolysis cells operated at 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 V applied voltage. The MEC model represented anodic organic oxidation, electron recovery, cathodic hydrogen evolution, competing methane formation, ohmic losses, and gas recovery efficiency. The 0.8 V MEC condition produced the best simulated compromise between hydrogen recovery and electrical demand, achieving 91.6% COD removal and 2.31 mol H2 per mol substrate-equivalent while using substantially less net grid energy than conventional aerobic treatment after crediting recovered hydrogen. Increasing voltage to 1.0 V raised gross hydrogen production but reduced the marginal energy benefit and increased modeled cathodic losses. The numerical values are synthetic and are used solely to demonstrate a plausible empirical design, comparative analysis, and journal-style reporting workflow. No real participants, operational institutions, commercial facilities, or field sites were studied. The analysis emphasizes current research trends, multi-metric evaluation, practical trade-offs, and the importance of validation before deployment.