Biohydrogen production from sugar industry effluents using nickel based electrode materials in microbial electrolysis cell

• Published in: International journal of hydrogen energy 2019-06, Vol.44 (32), p.17381-17388
• Main Authors: Jayabalan, Tamilmani, Matheswaran, Manickam, Naina Mohammed, Samsudeen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cathode materials; Hydrogen; Microbial Electrolysis Cell; Sugar industry wastewater
• ISSN: 0360-3199; 1879-3487
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.09.219

Biohydrogen production from sugar industry effluents in a dual chamber microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) was investigated in this study. The MEC reactor was operated with different effluents as a substrate from cane sugar and raw sugar reprocessing units of sugar industry. The biohydrogen production was investigated using different cathode materials of Nickel plate, Nickel foam, Stainless Steel mesh. The performance of MEC was tested based on the production of hydrogen, coloumbic efficiency, hydrogen recovery and COD removal efficiency respectively. The MEC hydrogen productions revealed that cane sugar effluent was more effective as compared to raw sugar effluent. The experimental results showed that at an applied voltage of 1.0 V, Ni-foam exhibited maximum hydrogen production of 1.59 and 1.43 mmol/L/D in cane sugar and raw sugar effluents respectively, which was about twice than SS-mesh and 1.2 times Ni-plate. This study shows that Ni-foam is one of the potential candidate as low cost electrode for improving hydrogen production in MEC technology with the treatment of industrial effluents. •Hydrogen production from sugar industrial effluents in MEC was investigated in this study.•Two types of effluent from cane sugar and raw sugar industries were used as a substrate.•Nickel foam, nickel plate and stainless steel mesh were used as cathode electrode.•Cane sugar effluent showed higher biohydrogen production than Raw sugar effluent.•Nickel foam exhibited maximum MEC performance than other electrodes in the MEC.