The growing population, industrial development, and rapid urban expansion have triggered environmental pollution. Ambient air, water streams, and soil/sediments are prone to contamination with various pollutants. The release of potentially harmful pollutants into the environment has been a grave issue for many years. Both inorganic and organic pollutants and/or gases are harmful to humans, aquatic biota, and ecosystems. Some emerging pollutants are extremely persistent in the environment, and the traditional treatment techniques cannot be considered a viable alternative. The application of environmental (bio)electrochemistry is an essential approach in this regard, contributing to a cleaner environment, especially for wastewaters, micro-polluted waters, hazardous gases in the engineered systems, and ambient air and soil/sediments. This process includes electrochemical and bioelectrochemical technologies.

Electrochemical and Bioelectrochemical technologies have recently received significant attention as emerging, environmentally-friendly processes that potentially have a multitude of possible applications. These applications include pollutants removal from water, soil/sediment and air/flue gases, besides resource recovery, chemical production, and sensing due to their effectiveness and ease in operation. Nowadays, electrochemical technologies have reached such a state that they are not only comparable with other technologies in terms of cost, but are also more efficient and compact. These technologies can not only be applied to environmental remediation, but also for resource recovery. The electrochemical recovery of metals has been practiced in the form of electrometallurgy for many years.

The aim of this Research Topic is to address the research innovation, robustness, technical applicability (from bench to pilot scale), and limitations in the application of various electrochemical and bioelectrochemical techniques, for remediation of the environment focusing on water/wastewater, soil/sediment and air/flue gases, and resource recovery.

(1) Electrochemically mediated approaches such as electrochemical oxidation, electrochemical reduction, electrocoagulation/flotation, electrodialysis, electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs), electrochemically aided membrane methods, and plasma electrolysis.

(2) Microbial fuel cells (MFCs), soil/sediment MFC, microbial electrolysis cells (MECs), microbial desalination cells (MDCs), microbial electrosynthesis (MES), bioelectro-Fenton (BEF), sequential BEF, MET-based biosensors, etc.