As known, decolorized metabolites (DMs) were capable to act as electron shuttles (ESs) to enhance color removal of textile dye(s); however, optimal manipulation of such advantages to microbial fuel cell (MFC)-assisted dye decolorization for industrial practicability were still remained open to be disclosed. The novelty of this work was to disclose such DMs-supplementing strategies for the most promising reductive decolorization in MFC-assisted bioremediation. Quantitative assessment clearly indicated that MFCs coupled to DMs accumulation was economically-feasible strategy of bioaugmentation and biostimulation. That is, MFC technology can be applied to select appropriate on-site dye decontamination in the presence of naturally-generating DMs. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.