ABSTRACT
Desalination removes contaminants such as salts or other minerals from seawater, brackish water, and wastewater effluent. This process is the need of the hour to fight water scarcity and generate freshwater for human consumption and domestic/industrial utilization. The microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a modified microbial fuel cell that recently received the attention to desalinate the water by using the energy derived from the metabolism of electroactive bacteria when organic matter is degraded and simultaneously generates power. This chapter provides a general outlook of the working principle of the conventional MDC and various factors that affect an MDC's performance. The reactor configurations, electrode materials, bacterial species, catholyte, and membranes used in MDC are reviewed.
