Anaerobic Biotechnology for Bioenergy Production || Biohydrogen Production: Fundamentals, Challenges, and Operation Strategies for Enhanced Yield

✍ Scribed by Khanal, Samir Kumar

• Book ID: 102683007
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2008
• Weight: 532 KB
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0813823463
• DOI: 10.1002/9780813804545.ch9

✦ Synopsis

The growing energy crisis, soaring fuel costs, and environmental concerns are major forces driving exploration of alternative energy sources. In addition, industrial nations wish to reduce their dependence on imported petroleum fuels. Hydrogen, an alternative energy carrier, can be produced renewably from domestic feedstocks such as organic wastes, biomass-derived sugars, and wastewaters.

Traditionally, methane recovery has been the major focus of anaerobic biotechnology. In recent years, the focus has shifted toward hydrogen production for several reasons. Hydrogen is a highly efficient energy source compared to methane, producing 143 kJ energy/g H 2 compared to 56 kJ energy/g of CH 4 . Hydrogen can be directly used in fuel cell. In addition, it has other commercial values such as raw material for ammonia, ethanol and aldehyde synthesis, and hydrogenation of edible oil and fossil fuels (Hart 1997). From an environmental perspective, hydrogen is a clean energy source, producing water as its only byproduct when burned. This chapter describes biohydrogen production through dark fermentation, including the hydrogen production pathway, strategies for obtaining enriched cultures, important considerations in biohydrogen production, limitations of biohydrogen production, and possible remedial measures. In addition, a technoeconomic analysis of biohydrogen production is also covered.