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Conversion of boreal lake sedimented pulp mill fibre into biogas: a two-stage hydrogen and methane production

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Abstract

The possibility of producing hydrogen and methane from sedimented pulp and paper mill waste fibre was explored for the first time in a double-stage process. Hydrogen and methane production was compared in batch experiments under four different conditions: two-stage hydrogen and methane production under (i) mesophilic (37 °C) and (ii) thermophilic (55 °C) and one-stage methane production under (iii) mesophilic and (iv) thermophilic conditions. Among these conditions studied, two-stage thermophilic anaerobic digestion achieved the highest hydrogen yield (42.1 ± 2.91 mL/g VS) and methane yield (334 ± 26.8 mL/g VS) at 55 °C. The experimental results were fitted to modified Gompertz equation, and a strong correlation was built from the overall magnitude of the regression (R2 ranged from 0.996to 0.989) between the experimental data and the applied equation. Total energy yield from the two-stage thermophilic process was higher (3.7 kWh/L) than the one-stage process (1.7 kWh/L). The two-stage treatment also reduced the treatment time by half. Knowledge gained from this study will provide a basis for future investigation of two-stage treatment of sedimented fibres.

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Acknowledgements

The first author appreciates the operators of Viinikanlahti municipal wastewater treatment plant (Tampere, Finland) for collecting the sludge samples and Ramboll Finland Oy for providing the sedimented fibre samples.

Funding

This work was supported by the fund received from the Finnish National Agency for Education (visiting doctoral program).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, PO Box 541, FI-33104, Tampere, Finland

    Mohamed El-Qelish, Pritha Chatterjee, Marika Kokko & Jukka Rintala

  2. Water Pollution Research Department, National Research Centre, El Buhouth St., Dokki, 12622, Cairo, Egypt

    Mohamed El-Qelish & Fatma El-Gohary

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Kandi, 502285, India

    Pritha Chatterjee

  4. Department of Climate Change, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Kandi, 502285, India

    Pritha Chatterjee

  5. Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt

    Mohamed Abo-Aly

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Contributions

Mohamed El-Qelish: methodology, investigation, formal analysis, visualization, writing — original draft. Pritha Chatterjee: methodology, investigation, visualization, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, supervision. Marika Kokko: investigation, visualization, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, supervision. Fatma El-Gohary: writing — review and editing, Supervision. Mohamed Abo-Aly: writing — and editing, supervision. Jukka Rintala: visualization, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition, project administration.

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Highlights

1. Sedimented boreal fibres were anaerobically treated in one- and two-stage treatment.

2. Hydrogen yield of sedimented fibres at 55 °C was four times the yield at 37 °C.

3. Two-stage treatment at 55 °C achieved the highest methane yield of 334 mL-CH4/g VS.

4. Maximum energy yield of 3.7 kWh/L was obtained at 55 °C.

5. Net energy yield of the two-stage treatment was the most efficient at 55 °C.

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El-Qelish, M., Chatterjee, P., Kokko, M. et al. Conversion of boreal lake sedimented pulp mill fibre into biogas: a two-stage hydrogen and methane production. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 14, 8819–8828 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-03219-0

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