Co-production of hydrogen and electricity from macroalgae by simultaneous dark fermentation and microbial fuel cell
Tamirat Redae Gebreslassie, Phan Khanh Thinh Nguyen, Hyon Hee Yoon, Jihyeon Kim
Abstract
In this study, a hybrid process of dark fermentation (DF) and microbial fuel cell (MFC), sDFMFC, was investigated for simultaneous H 2 and electricity production from Saccharina japonica in a single reactor. The sDFMFC exhibited a considerably enhanced energy recovery owing to simultaneous H 2 /carboxylic acids (CAs) production by DF and electricity production by MFC consuming CAs. The co-production of H 2 and electricity was confirmed by a time course of CAs concentration in sDFMFC. An excellent energy recovery of 17.3% was obtained from S. japonica with H 2 yield of 110 mL/g-VS and maximum power density of 1.82 W/m 2 . The sDFMFC showed a diverse microbial community for a desirable microbial conversion of organic substrates. The results indicate that sDFMFC can be a promising single reactor process to produce H 2 and electricity from various biomass feedstock with considerable cost savings while ensuring the strength of the individual DF and MFC process.