Hydrogen biorefinery: Potential utilization of the liquid waste from fermentative hydrogen production

Saurabh Jyoti Sarma, Vinayak Pachapur, Satinder Kaur Brar, Yann Le Bihan and Gerardo Buelna

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015, vol. 50, issue C, 942-951

Abstract: In terms of greenhouse gas emission reduction potential, hydrogen is superior to commercial biofuels and fossil fuels because it has high energy density and it generates only water as major emission. Biohydrogen production has additional environmental benefit as different organic wastes can be valorized during the process; however, because of high process cost, its commercial production is not yet there. During dark fermentation, in addition to hydrogen, around 60% of the feedstock may convert to various industrial chemicals including ethanol, 1, 3 propanediol and butyric acid. If these products are not recovered, the liquid waste generated during the process can be used as the feedstock for production of polyhydroxyalkanoates, lipid, methane, hydrogen and electricity. The liquid waste is also a potential substitute of phosphate solubilizing bio-fertilizers. Thus, in this review, biohydrogen production process is evaluated as a potential biorefinery producing biofuels, fine chemicals and biomaterials. The strategy could be useful to reduce overall cost of the process by generating revenue from multiple sources.

Keywords: Biohydrogen; Biorefinery; Butyric acid; Ethanol; 1,3 propanediol; Liquid waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115005237
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:50:y:2015:i:c:p:942-951

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.04.191

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().