ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Producing Hydrogen in Sequential Dark
and Photofermentation from Four Different
Distillery Wastewaters
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Faculty of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Submission date: 2019-08-01
Final revision date: 2019-08-23
Acceptance date: 2019-09-01
Online publication date: 2020-03-02
Publication date: 2020-04-21
Corresponding author
Roman Zagrodnik
Department of Kinetics and Catalysis, Adam Mickiewicz University, Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 8, 61-614, Poznań, Poland
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2020;29(4):2935-2944
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ABSTRACT
Four different distillery wastewaters were applied as the substrates for dark and photofermentation
– wheat stillage (WTL), wheat syrup (WSR), maize stillage (MTL) and maize syrups (MSR). WTL
was found to be the most effective substrate in dark fermentation, with a hydrogen production of
0.88 L H2/Lmedium and a yield of 1.17 L H2/LWTL. In the photofermentation experiments, the highest
hydrogen production (1.7 L H2/Lmedium) and the highest yield (8.6 L H2/LWSR) were obtained with
WSR as the substrate. A sequential two-step treatment, comprising dark fermentation followed by
photofermentation, was applied to the same four substrates. WTL and MTL were the substrates for dark
fermentation and the effluent after 5-fold dilution was used as the substrate in photofermentation. The
maximum hydrogen production in the two-step system was 4.47 L H2/LWTL. Simultaneously, the organic
compounds from the waste and those formed in dark fermentation were completely utilized, except for
ethanol and methanol, which were 19% and 10% utilized, respectively.