title: Evaluation of pretreatment methods on mixed inoculum for both batch and continuous thermophilic biohydrogen production from cassava stillage.
abstract: Anaerobic sludges, pretreated by chloroform, base, acid, heat and loading-shock, as well as untreated sludge were evaluated for their thermophilic fermentative hydrogen-producing characters from cassava stillage in both batch and continuous experiments. Results showed that the highest hydrogen production was obtained by untreated sludge and there were significant differences (p<0.05) in hydrogen yields (varied from 32.9 to 65.3mlH(2)/gVS) among the tested pretreatment methods in batch experiments. However, the differences in hydrogen yields disappeared in continuous experiments, which indicated the pretreatment methods had only short-term effects on the hydrogen production. Further study showed that alkalinity was a crucial parameter influencing the fermentation process. When the influent was adjusted to pH 6 by NaHCO(3) instead of NaOH, the hydrogen yield increased from about 40 to 52mlH(2)/gVS in all the experiments. Therefore, pretreatment of anaerobic sludge is unnecessary for practical thermophilic fermentative hydrogen production from cassava stillage.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, Key Laboratory of Yangtze River Water Environment, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, PR China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Zhonghai
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D019149:Bioreactors; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods; D005285:Fermentation; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007700:Kinetics; D002365:Manihot / Q000378:metabolism*; D012722:Sewage; D013696:Temperature; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage; D006859:Hydrogen