Seed Pretreatment for Increased Hydrogen Production Using Mixed-Culture Systems with Advantages over Pure-Culture Systems

Vinayak Laxman Pachapur, Prianka Kutty, Preetika Pachapur, Satinder Kaur Brar, Yann Le Bihan, Rosa Galvez-Cloutier and Gerardo Buelna
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Vinayak Laxman Pachapur: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre—Eau Terre Environnement, 490, Rue de la Couronne, Québec, QC G1K 9A9, Canada
Prianka Kutty: National Institute of Technology Warangal, Warangal 506004, India
Preetika Pachapur: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre—Eau Terre Environnement, 490, Rue de la Couronne, Québec, QC G1K 9A9, Canada
Satinder Kaur Brar: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre—Eau Terre Environnement, 490, Rue de la Couronne, Québec, QC G1K 9A9, Canada
Yann Le Bihan: Centre de Recherche Industrielle du Québec (CRIQ), Québec, QC G1P 4C7, Canada
Rosa Galvez-Cloutier: Department of Civil Engineering and Water Engineering, Pavilion Adrien-Pouliot, Université Laval, 1065, avenue de la Médecine, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Gerardo Buelna: Centre de Recherche Industrielle du Québec (CRIQ), Québec, QC G1P 4C7, Canada

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-26

Abstract: Hydrogen is an important source of energy and is considered as the future energy carrier post-petroleum era. Nowadays hydrogen production through various methods is being explored and developed to minimize the production costs. Biological hydrogen production has remained an attractive option, highly economical despite low yields. The mixed-culture systems use undefined microbial consortia unlike pure-cultures that use defined microbial species for hydrogen production. This review summarizes mixed-culture system pretreatments such as heat, chemical (acid, alkali), microwave, ultrasound, aeration, and electric current, amongst others, and their combinations to improve the hydrogen yields. The literature representation of pretreatments in mixed-culture systems is as follows: 45–50% heat-treatment, 15–20% chemical, 5–10% microwave, 10–15% combined and 10–15% other treatment. In comparison to pure-culture mixed-culture offers several advantages, such as technical feasibility, minimum inoculum steps, minimum media supplements, ease of operation, and the fact it works on a wide spectrum of low-cost easily available organic wastes for valorization in hydrogen production. In comparison to pure-culture, mixed-culture can eliminate media sterilization (4 h), incubation step (18–36 h), media supplements cost ($4–6 for bioconversion of 1 kg crude glycerol (CG)) and around 10–15 Millijoule (MJ) of energy can be decreased for the single run.

Keywords: chemical; fermentation; hydrogen; heat; microwave; mixed-culture; nanoparticle; organic-wastes; ultrasound (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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