LAUSR

Abstract The modern society’s sustainable development and the ever-increasing population growth are facing the serious challenge of shortage in water resources. The solution to this global problem needs collective efforts at multiple levels and one of them could be finding new methods of clean water production. In this regard, microbial desalination cells (MDCs) have emerged as a promising technology that has the potential to help address this problem. This work reviews the recent developments in MDC technologies as well as the current research work being done in this area. This paper also presents recent advances in membranes, cell design and the cells’ capability of being integrated with other desalination systems to enhance desalination capacity and power production. Attention is also paid to the various materials and components of MDC systems while highlighting the advances in each of these categories. Furthermore, economic and environmental assessments are made to show various challenges in the application and reliability of this technology. The results of this review show that the main challenge in MDC is the feasibility of its large-scale implementation. It further shows that more efforts are needed to improve its efficiency in power generation to make it a viable technology.