Improving electricity generation from wastewater (DW) by using olive mill wastewater (OMW) was evaluated
using single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFC). Doing so single-chambers air cathode MFCs with
platinum anode were fed with domestic wastewater (DW) alone and mixed with OMW at the ratio of
14:1 (w/w). MFCs fed with DW + OMW gave 0.38 V at 1 kO, while power density from polarization curve
was of 124.6mW m 2. The process allowed a total reduction of TCOD and BOD5 of 60% and 69%, respectively,
recovering the 29% of the coulombic efficiency. The maximum voltage obtained from MFC fed with
DW + OMW was 2.9 times higher than that of cell fed with DW. DNA-fingerprinting showed high bacterial
diversity for both experiments and the presence on anodes of exoelectrogenic bacteria, such as Geobacter
spp. Electrodes selected peculiar consortia and, in particular, anodes of both experiments showed a
similar specialization of microbial communities independently by feeding used