Gourav Dhar BhowmickIndian Institute of Technology Kharagpur | IIT KGP · Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering
Gourav Dhar Bhowmick
Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
About
78
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Additional affiliations
July 2020 - September 2021
August 2016 - June 2020
Education
August 2014 - May 2016
August 2010 - May 2014
Publications
Publications (78)
Bioelectrochemical anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) systems allow eco-friendly removal of nitrogen from reject wastewater coming from biogas processing as the anammox bacteria have previously shown to have c-type cytochromes acting in the extracellular electron transport (EET) mechanism between the bacteria and electrode. The anammoxosome com...
Adult Odonata represent valuable indicators of natural habitat quality, ecosystem integrity, and pollution status in freshwater ecosystems. This study aimed to investigate how varying climatic condition, sub-habitat types, and physicochemical ambience of wetlands impact Odonata diversity. We compared the abundance and richness of Odonata in two urb...
As fascinating as it sounds, membrane technologies have become very important for various applications in the present world. In the realm of wastewater treatment and resource recovery, the relentless pursuit of sustainable and efficient solutions has led to remarkable advancements in membrane technologies. Among these transformative innovations, me...
In this chapter, we explore the fascinating realm of bioelectrochemical systems (BES) and their role in powering various sensors crucial for diverse applications, including water quality analysis, medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and plant growth analysis.
Recent advancements in sensor technologies, electronics, and wireless communic...
Seaweed, a valuable marine resource widely cultivated worldwide, can be vulnerable to stress and microbiome alterations, resulting in the decay of seaweeds and substantial economic losses. To investigate the seaweed-microbiome interaction, our study aimed to isolate marine bacteria and fungi that can cause Ice–Ice disease and evaluate their enzymat...
The imperative to replace fossil fuels with renewable fuels, such as marine ecosystem-derived fuel and food, has spurred the development of a blue carbon economic model. Seaweed emerges as a pivotal element in this framework, demonstrating potential as a substantial carbon sink. Seaweed serves multiple purposes, encompassing climate change adaptati...
The sustainable development of aquaculture faces a significant challenge due to the need for the frequent treatment of aquacultural waste. This research presents a pioneering solution by concurrently utilizing aquacultural waste to produce biochar and enhancing a sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC)’s treatment efficacy for waste generated from the...
Biofuels, such as coal and oil, have been the most suitable and sufficient substitutes for other conventional fuels in the energy sector for the last few years. For decades, entire populations have suffered from deforestation, global warming, and carbon monoxide issues. Biofuel production is an eco-friendly process that still has health hazards for...
The presence of ammonium (NH4+) in wastewater above the permissible limits leads to undesirable ecological impact and public health concerns. In this study, the anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria-mediated nitrogen removal was investigated using a sequential batch reactor (SBR). Effects of different salinity levels were evaluated on the...
Renewable hydrogen production has the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation and industrial sectors. This method generates hydrogen utilizing renewable energy sources, such as the sun, wind, and hydropower, lowering the number of greenhouse gases released into the environment. In recent years, considerable progress has been ma...
Oil spills pose a significant threat to the maritime ecosystem. Identifying an oil spill is vital to assess its spread and drift to nearby coastal areas. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors are viable for mapping and monitoring marine oil spills. This study proposes a new technique that utilizes the dual-polarimetric Sentinel-1 SAR data. The met...
A novel anaerobic ultrafiltration membrane bio‐fuel cell (UFBFC) was conceptualized to improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment with a reduced footprint and bioenergy recovery. The system with a working volume of 40 L reached a maximum power density of 23.3 mW/m2 while treating synthetic wastewater with initial chemical oxygen demand (COD) of...
Wastewater treatment has been an area of great interest for many decades due to pollutants that cause harmful effects on the water bodies. However, with rapid industrialization and population growth, water quality of conventionally treated effluents is becoming progressively worse. Water quality analysis of treated water from different wastewater t...
Paulownia tomentosa, a woody plant that is widely found in Pakistan and in other regions of the world, was used as a raw material to prepare activated carbon using chemical and physical activation methods. Adsorption of the dyes- acid red 4 and methylene blue onto the prepared activated carbon were analyzed by batch experiments. The impacts of diff...
Pd–Ni nanoparticles supported on activated carbon (Pd–Ni/AC) were prepared using a phase transfer method. The purpose of synthesizing ternary composites was to enhance the surface area of synthesized Pd–Ni nanoparticles, as they have a low surface area. The resulting composite was characterized by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffrac...
In this study palladium-nickel (Pd-Ni) nanoparticles supported on carbon and cerium oxide (Pd-Ni/AC-CeO2) were synthesized by a transfer phase method and characterized by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The XRD and SEM data concluded the presence of alloy formation betwe...
Formation of methane in the anodic chamber of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) indicates an energy inefficiency in electricity generation as the energy required for electrogenesis gets redirected to methanogenesis. The hypothesis of this research is that inhibition of methanogenesis in the mixed anaerobic anodic inoculum is associated with an enhanced a...
Biological nutrients removal from wastewater to acceptable levels is needed to protect water re-sources and avoid eutrophication. Start-up of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process from scratch was investigated in a 20 L sequence batch reactor (SBR) inoculated with a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic sludge at 30 ± 0.5 °C at a hydraulic rete...
A two-stage integrated microbial fuel cell (MFC)-aerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR) based wastewater treatment technology with ruthenium/activated carbon (Ru/AC) as cathode catalyst in MFC was investigated. The results showcased the maximum volumetric power density and coulombic efficiency were nearly 1.4 and 1.5 times higher in case of MFC-MBR syst...
The inoculum biomass was collected from a pilot-scale (3 m3 process tank) nitritation-anaerobic ammonium oxidation (ANAMMOX) deammonification moving bed biofilm reactor (DeaMBBR) demonstrating the highest total nitrogen removal rate (TNRR) of 0.33 kg N m-3 d-1. This inoculum biomass was used for inoculating the anodic chamber of a microbial fuel ce...
Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) were synthesized in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix by impregnating TiO2-Si or SrTiO3-Si as proton exchanger for microbial fuel cells (MFCs). These PEMs were physically characterized, which approved the presence of hygroscopic oxides like SiO2 to increase the proton transfer due to the formation of Si-H along with th...
Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is a widely used anionic surfactant, which finds its way to the receiving water body due to the incapability of conventional wastewater treatment systems to completely remove it. A hybrid treatment system consisting of upflow microbial fuel cell (MFC) with titanium dioxide (TiO2) as a photocathode catalyst was developed...
The fish market wastewater, which is rich in ammonium concentration, was investigated to explore its ability of in situ suppression of methanogenesis in the anodic chamber of microbial fuel cell (MFC) while treating it and to ensure non-reoccurrence of methanogenic consortia in the anodic chamber during its long-term operations. A lower specific me...
This investigation demonstrates that sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) can be
biodegraded efficaciously in MFC within a retention time of 12 h. The application of
MFC for degradation of SDS and its corresponding effect on the power and
contaminant removal capacity of MFC was first time quantified in this investigation. The
work also illustrated the SDS...
Microalgae derived activated biochar (ABC-900) was synthesized by thermal activation of biochar at 900°C and the activated biochar was characterised to ascertain the applicability as low-cost electrocatalyst in microbial fuel cell (MFC). Characterisation of ABC-900 using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reve...
Ru was impregnated with Bi (Bi-Ru) to reduce the spectrum demand for the excitation of Ru to employ it as photocathode catalyst in microbial fuel cell (MFC) to ameliorate its power output in presence of visible-spectrum. The coulombic efficiency (CE) and power density of MFC with Bi-Ru (MFC-BiRu) was found to be 26.7 ± 0.8% and 10.0 ± 0.5 W/m3, res...
The COVID-19 outbreak due to SARS-CoV-2 has raised several concerns for its high transmission rate and unavailability of any treatment to date. Although major routes of its transmission involve respiratory droplets and direct contact, the infection through faecal matter is also possible. Conventional sewage treatment methods with disinfection are e...
Performance of a microbial fuel cell (MFC) is greatly influenced by capability of anode material in promoting attachment of electrogenic bacteria on its surface, which assists in higher electron transfer with minimal electrode resistance. In this investigation, feasibility of different anode materials made of stainless-steel (SS) mesh cage filled w...
The electrogenic bacterial consortia enrichment in the anodic chamber play a crucial role in determining the efficiency of microbial fuel cell (MFC). In order to use mix anaerobic culture enriched with active electrogenic species as inoculum, suppression of methanogens is important. This investigation focuses on potential of extracts of Azadirachta...
Lack of proper physical separation between the anodic and cathodic zones of constructed wetland-microbial fuel cell (CW-MFC) causes higher oxygen diffusion into anodic zone, which leads to non-productive electron losses. In this investigation, performance of two up-flow hydroponic CW-MFCs with low-cost ceramic separator (R1) and without separator (...
Selection of proton conducting membrane is currently a key factor that decides the performance of microbial fuel cell (MFC). Uniaxial pressed polysiloxane-derived ceramer and ceramic membrane with proton conducting fillers like montmorillonite and H3PMo12O40/SiO2 were applied for the first time as separator in MFC. Here, we present a series of poly...
A two-stage continuous process was developed for treating medium-strength wastewater combining microbial fuel cell (MFC) using activated carbon (AC)/TiO2 composite as cathode catalyst and submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR). Synthetic wastewater, having total chemical oxygen demand (COD) of around 3 g/L, was introduced first in the anodic chamber o...
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) has potential to treat wastewater with simultaneous bio-electricity recovery. To produce superior quality effluent from MFC, an anaerobic ultrafiltration membrane bio-fuel cell (UFMFC) was developed employed with membrane transverse vibration technique to mitigate biofouling, which under anaerobic condition tends to be mor...
Herein, iron phthalocyanine (FePc) and cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) were used to impregnate nitrogen and corresponding transition metals to the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) or carbide-derived carbon (CDC) to compare the prepared highly efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts for application in microbial fuel cells (MFC). The re...
Proton-conducting porous ceramic membranes were synthesized via a polymer-derived ceramic route and probed in a microbial fuel cell (MFC). Their chemical compositions were altered by adding carbon allotropes including graphene oxide (GO) and multiwall carbon nanotubes into a polysiloxane matrix as filler materials. Physical characteristics of the s...
Two integrated microbial fuel cell-membrane bioreactor (MFC-MBR) were developed to treat medium-strength wastewater with simultaneous power generation. Both the systems were operated with photo-sensitized cathode (with TiO2-Activated carbon) with one irradiated by UV-A light (MMT-UV), while the other was not in direct contact with any light sensiti...
Current hike in nutritional food demand because of the population explosion makes fish and fish processed food as the future for human food supply according to the scientist from all over the world. But the tendency of production of enormous quantity of organic and nutrient rich wastewater by these fish processing industries requires further treatm...
Rhodium with activated carbon as carbon base layer (Rh/AC) was exploited as an oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst to explore its applicability in microbial fuel cell (MFC). Four MFCs were fabricated using the Rh/AC catalyst, adopting varying Rh loadings of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg cm−2 and without Rh on carbon felt cathode in order to understand t...
Development of an affordable low-cost durable proton exchange membrane (PEM)for efficient performance of microbial fuel cell (MFC)is one of the major bottlenecks that need to be dealt with. Therefore, in this study, activated carbon derived from coconut shell (ACCS)has been blended with natural clay to prepare a low cost PEM with estimated cost of...
Microbial fuel cell (MFC)technology has been widely experimented nowadays, as it is a promising clean energy technology, which can harvest bioelectricity while simultaneously treating wastewater. Platinum (Pt), a precious transition metal, has long been regarded as a superior catalyst material for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)at the cathode of th...
The applicability of a new class of ceramic materials in Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs)was investigated, targeting the development of cost-effective anode materials with long-term durability. In this work, silicon oxycarbide (SiOC)-based porous anodes were prepared by the polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs)route, using poly(methyl silsesquioxane)and poly(...
The recent explosion of the world’s population leads to greater energy demands and deterioration of the environment in an exponential way. Therefore, there is a trend in a recent scientific discussion on the usage of alternative green energy sources, such as biomass to partially replace the fossil fuels, as it is on the verge of ending within this...
In the present world where depletion of non-renewable resources and global warming poses a significant threat to the existence of all living species, the need to develop clean and renewable energy sources cannot be understated anymore. One of the noblest research that had been going on in recent decades, is to liberate usable energy from organic wa...
For application in a microbial fuel cell (MFC), transition metal and nitrogen co-doped nanocarbon catalysts were synthesised by pyrolysis of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in the presence of iron- or cobalt chloride and nitrogen source. For the physicochemical characterisation of the catalysts, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray p...
Low cost tungsten oxide/bismuth tungstate (WO3/Bi2WO6) composite was synthesized and used as cathode catalyst in microbial fuel cell (MFC). Almost 1.5 times increment in specific surface area of WO3/Bi2WO6 composite was observed as compared with WO3 and WO3/Bi2WO6 exhibited efficient oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) having a current peak of 8.1 mA a...
Waste generation from healthcare facilities now has become a concerning issue as it contains plastic and metals. Medicine wrappers are one of the major portion of healthcare solid waste, which impel intensive solid waste management practice due to less possibilities of deriving by-products. However, it can be recycled and used as electrode material...
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) has a great potential to treat wastewater with simultaneous bio-energy recovery. However, for field scale applications, there are still many obstacles to overcome like selecting improved biocompatible anode material to enrich biofilm development and higher electrical conductivity. In this study, coconut coir based anode wa...
A low-cost electrochemically active oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst is obligatory for making microbial fuel cells (MFCs) sustainable and economically viable. In this endeavour, a highly active surface modified ferrite, with Co and Zn bimetal in the ratio of 1:1 (w/w), Co0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 was synthesised using simple sol-gel auto combustion met...
Cu-Sn bimetallic alloy supported on acetylene black was prepared and tested under different loadings per unit cathode surface area viz. 1 mg.cm⁻², 2 mg.cm⁻² and 5 mg.cm⁻² as a catalyst to improve the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and to enhance performance of the microbial fuel cell (MFC). Electrochemical analyses were performed to evaluate the O...
Overpotential losses on cathode during oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) causes serious performance depletion in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). High cost of existing platinum based noble catalysts is one of the main reason for growing interest in the research of low cost sustainable cathode catalysts to improve ORR in order to enhance power generation...
Bismuth impregnation on pure TiO2 (Bi–TiO2) was carried out and tested in microbial fuel cell (MFC) as photocathode catalyst. UV–Visible spectral observation confirmed higher catalytic activity of Bi–TiO2 under visible light irradiation with reduced band gap of 2.80 eV as compared to pure TiO2 (3.26 eV). Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy also...
A two-stage integrated microbial fuel cell (MFC)-aerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology with ruthenium/activated carbon (AC) catalyst coated with four diffusion layers of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) outside the cathode was developed and performance was evaluated for treatment of synthetic wastewater containing chemical oxygen demand (COD)...
In this experiment, a new bimetal low–cost Cu–Sn alloy was synthesized and it was tested as catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in MFC and the results were compared with the commercially available Pt-C catalyst. Cyclic voltammetry for evaluating ORR of the test cathode containing Cu-Sn catalysts under oxygen saturated environment displayed...
In this study an effort is made by employing a two-stage continuous process of combining microbial fuel cell (MFC) with membrane bioreactor (MBR), facilitated with submerged UF membrane, for an effective and reliable wastewater treatment. The combined treatment process is being optimized to attain higher efficiency of organic matter removal from wa...
Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) are the mostprominently used separator in microbial fuel cell (MFC) andmicrobial carbon capture cell (MCC).This study aims at evaluating the characteristics of coconut shell (CS) to explore its potential as a PEM. The CS exhibited superior water absorption (32%), which can stimulate the proton transmission through w...
In this experiment, a new bimetal low–cost Cu–Sn alloy was synthesized and it was tested as catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in MFC and the results were compared with the commercially available Pt-C catalyst. Cyclic voltammetry for evaluating ORR of the test cathode containing Cu-Sn catalysts under oxygen saturated environment displayed...
The world is now in the middle of a huge transition between fossil fuels to the renewable energy. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology, which uses microorganisms to transform chemical energy of organic compounds into electricity, is now considered to be one of the finest cutting edge technologies to eradicate future energy crisis of the world. Memb...
Novel catalyst WO3 was used to enhance the performance of microbial fuel cell
Fish processing operations produce wastewater which contains organic contaminants (disintegrated flesh, blood etc.), which when released into the environment may cause deterioration of water quality and eutrophication of water bodies, imposing potential hazardous issues. Combined microbial fuel cell-membrane bioreactor (MFC-MBR) technology has been...
A combined approach of treating domestic wastewater using microbial fuel cell (MFC) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) has been developed as a promising and reliable technology of wastewater treatment. Treatment of wastewater in a single stage MFC has limitation to achieve the required treatment efficiency and utilize the effluent for irrigation or any...
A huge proportion of today’s growing energy demand is supplied by fossil fuels, which unfortunately contributes to the global warming. Furthermore, wastewater must be treated avoiding harms to the environment and in a lesser energy consuming way. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) technology can successfully approach towards energy production and wastewate...
Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a leading-edge technology that can successfully approach towards energy production and simultaneous wastewater treatment. In this study the performances of air-cathode MFCs using nano-TiO 2 catalyst modified cathodic assembly was tested. Two ceramic cylinders of working volume 2.5 l were used as anodic half-cell. MFC-1...
A combined approach of treating domestic wastewater using microbial fuel cells (MFC) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) technologies is an energy-efficient, novel and promising process of reliable wastewater treatment. Wastewater treatment in single stage MFC has a limitation to achieve the required treatment efficiency for inland surface water disposal...
Questions
Questions (2)
How COVID-19 can affect the urban and rural water sector at the current stage?
Our latest review titled "𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 (𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃-𝟏𝟗) 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤: 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞" published in 𝑵𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 (𝒏𝒑𝒋) 𝑪𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 summarizes the current scenario on the possibility of faecal–oral transmission of COVID-19 and related water contamination along with the precautionary measures that need to be taken by the government as well as by the individuals with an eye on a knowledge-based scientific resolution to confront the COVID-19 outbreak.
Any feedback on further necessary steps to be taken is cordially welcome.
Our latest review titled "𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 (𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃-𝟏𝟗) 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤: 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞" published in 𝑵𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 (𝒏𝒑𝒋) 𝑪𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 summarizes the current scenario on the possibility of faecal–oral transmission of COVID-19 and related water contamination along with the precautionary measures that need to be taken by the government as well as by the individuals with an eye on a knowledge-based scientific resolution to confront the COVID-19 outbreak.
Any feedback on further necessary steps to be taken is cordially welcome.
