Effect of Hydraulic Retention Time on Continuous Biohydrogen Production by the Codigestion of Brewery Wastewater and Cheese Whey

• Published in: Bioenergy research 2024-06, Vol.17 (2), p.1155-1166
• Main Authors: Cruz-López, Arquímedes, Cruz-Méndez, Alfredo, Suárez-Vázquez, Santiago Iván, Reyna-Gómez, Lirio M., Pecina-Chacón, D. E., de León Gómez, Héctor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acetic acid; Alternative energy sources; Anaerobic Digestion: A Topical Collection of Articles; Biodegradation; Biogas; Biohydrogen; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Breweries; Brewing industry wastewaters; Butyric acid; Carbon; Chemical oxygen demand; Citrobacter; Fermentation; Fluidized bed reactors; Food; Food industries wastewaters; Food industry; Glucose; Hydraulic retention time; Hydraulics; Inoculum; Life Sciences; Metabolites; Microorganisms; Organic matter; Plant Breeding/Biotechnology; Plant Ecology; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Sciences; Reactors; Retention; Retention time; Sludge; Solid suspensions; Substrates; Total suspended solids; Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors; Wastewater; Wood Science & Technology
• ISSN: 1939-1242; 1939-1234; 1939-1242
• DOI: 10.1007/s12155-022-10399-0

This paper aims to study dark fermentation (DF) in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor during 20 cycles operating at different hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 3, 9, and 12 h using substrate wastewater from the food industry and granular inoculum sludge from a treatment plant as codigestion to explore the relationship between substrates, metabolites, and microorganisms to increase the biohydrogen (BioH 2 ) yield. Operation conditions were constant pH 5.50 ± 0.50, T = 35 °C and a carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio of 30. It is noteworthy that DF with HRT = 9 h obtained the highest yields of organic matter degradation, and BioH 2 in biogas (~60%) was attributed to the adjustment of pH and the codigestion buffer capacity. During DF with HRT = 9, the reactor was 11 times more productive with regards to HRT = 3 h, resulting in its performance with a better yield mean (6.22 mmol H 2 g COD −1 ) and productivity (0.35 L H2 L −1 d) than other HRTs with lower records of 0.42 mmol H 2 g COD −1 and 0.05 L H2 L −1 d, respectively. The high abundance of native populations ( Lactobacillus and Lactococcus ) and intrinsic inoculum ( Citrobacter ) led to the highest BioH 2 production. Most of the production of acetic acid ~590 mg L −1 and butyric acid ~450 mg L −1 confirmed that BioH 2 is mainly produced by acetic and butyric metabolic routes, and a direct relation with the percentage of retention of total suspended solids was also found, supporting the biodegradation capacity of the process.