Hydrogen production using up-flow anaerobic packed bed reactor

Author(s)

Bruna Soares Fernandes

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC/SBD)
• Defense date: 2008-05-16

Examining board members

Marcelo Zaiat; Juliana Vaz Bevilaqua; Eugenio Foresti; Maria Bernadete Amancio Varesche Silva; Liliana Margarida Borzacconi Vidal

• Advisor: Marcelo Zaiat

Abstract

The hydrogen obtained by fermentative production is studied as an alternative process to provide energy instead of fossil fuel application. Moreover, hydrogen is a renewable fuel, has high energy content per unit weight (122 kJ/g), generates clean energy without pollution and produces no greenhouse gases. The fermentative process has low cost when it is compared with traditional process and photosynthetic process, because hydrogen can be produced from wastewater by anaerobic treatment process. For that reason, the aim of this research was to study some parameters involved in the hydrogen production by fermentative process. Three steps were developed. In the first step, it was studied the hydrogen production from sucrose using up-flow anaerobic packed-bed reactor, this step was divide in two phases. In the first phase three support materials (clay beads, vegetal coal and polyethylene) and two hydraulic retention times (0.5 and 2 h) were tested. In the second phase three porosities (50, 75 and 91%) of polyethylene bed were tested. The results demonstrated that the low HRT and high porosities provided high hydrogen production, although, the support materials did not show significant difference in the hydrogen production and in the biomass developed. In the second phase, four inocula were used in order to produce hydrogen: thermal pre-treated methanogenic sludge; and the others three came from the reactors used in the first phase. All inocula were able to produce hydrogen. In the third step hydrogen production was obtained from three wastewaters (domestic wastewater, vinasse and glycerol) and a control (sucrose) in batch reactors. The wastewaters and control produced hydrogen and the vinasse showed the highest production. This research makes available the comprehension on the influence of the different parameters in processes projected for hydrogen production and it makes viable to apply in full-scale. (AU)