The Use of Acidic Hydrolysates after Furfural Production from Sugar Waste Biomass as a Fermentation Medium in the Biotechnological Production of Hydrogen

Abstract

This study investigates a simultaneous processing of sugar beet pulp (SBP) for furfural, hydrogen and methane production using various pretreatment methods. In the experiments, sugar beet pulp was first subjected to thermal and thermochemical pretreatment at 140 °C. Then hydrolysates from these operations were investigated for their potential for methane and hydrogen production in batch tests. The experiments showed that thermal pretreatment of SBP resulted in the highest biogas and methane yields of 945 dm3/kg volatile solids (VS) and 374 dm3 CH4/kg VS, respectively, and a moderate hydrogen production of 113 dm3 H2/kg VS, which corresponded to a calculated energy production of 142 kWh/t; however, only low amount of furfural was obtained (1.63 g/L). Conversely, the highest furfural yield of 12 g/L was achieved via thermochemical pretreatment of SBP; however, biogas production from hydrolysate was much lower (215 dm3/kg VS) and contained only 67 dm3/kg VS of hydrogen. Meanwhile, in the experiment with lower amounts of sulfuric acid (2%) used for pretreatment, a moderate furfural production of 4 g/L was achieved with as high as 220 dm3/kg VS of hydrogen and the corresponding energy yield of 75 kWh/t.

Production of Methane, Hydrogen and Ethanol from Secale cereale L. Straw Pretreated with Sulfuric Acid

“…Cieciura-Włoch and co-workers [39] described that the energy obtainable from the combustion of hydrogen is 0.0107 MJ/L [39]. Our tests gave two largest similar amounts of hydrogen: 134.71 and 131.99 L H 2 /kg VS rye straw.…”

Enzymatic Pretreatment of Byproducts from Soapstock Splitting and Glycerol Processing for Improvement of Biogas Production

“…The flasks were incubated at 50 • C for 24 h with agitation at 150 rpm. Next, the hydrolysates were subjected to batch digestion tests performed in an installation described in the previous study [37]. Briefly, it consisted of 1 L glass bottles with a working volume of approximately 700 mL, coupled with gas hold tanks to measure daily biogas yield and to provide strict anaerobic conditions (Figure 8A).…”

Effect of Localized Temperature Difference on Hydrogen Fermentation

“…The development of hydrogen (H 2 ) production technology has gained significant attention due to its high energy content (142 kJ/g) and its cleaner nature on combustion [1][2][3]. At present, the commercial production of H 2 is achieved via coal gasification, gas reforming, etc., which are not sustainable and environmentally benign due to the depletion of the fossil fuels and the generation of greenhouse gaseous emissions [4,5].…”