title: Looking for practical tools to achieve next-future applicability of dark fermentation to produce bio-hydrogen from organic materials in Continuously Stirred Tank Reactors.
abstract: This study aimed at finding applicable tools for favouring dark fermentation application in full-scale biogas plants in the next future. Firstly, the focus was obtaining mixed microbial cultures from natural sources (soil-inocula and anaerobically digested materials), able to efficiently produce bio-hydrogen by dark fermentation. Batch reactors with proper substrate (1 gL(glucose)(-1)) and metabolites concentrations, allowed high H(2) yields (2.8 ± 0.66 mol H(2)mol(glucose)(-1)), comparable to pure microbial cultures achievements. The application of this methodology to four organic substrates, of possible interest for full-scale plants, showed promising and repeatable bio-H(2) potential (BHP=202 ± 3 NL(H2)kg(VS)(-1)) from organic fraction of municipal source-separated waste (OFMSW). Nevertheless, the fermentation in a lab-scale CSTR (nowadays the most diffused typology of biogas-plant) of a concentrated organic mixture of OFMSW (126 g(TS)L(-1)) resulted in only 30% of its BHP, showing that further improvements are still needed for future full-scale applications of dark fermentation.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Agraria, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 2, 20133 Milano, Italy. alberto.tenca@unimi.it
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tenca
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schievano
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lonati
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Malagutti
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oberti
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Adani
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D005285:Fermentation; D006859:Hydrogen; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D006859:Hydrogen