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Effect of Hydraulic Retention Time on Continuous Biohydrogen Production by the Codigestion of Brewery Wastewater and Cheese Whey

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Abstract

This paper aims to study dark fermentation (DF) in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor during 20 cycles operating at different hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 3, 9, and 12 h using substrate wastewater from the food industry and granular inoculum sludge from a treatment plant as codigestion to explore the relationship between substrates, metabolites, and microorganisms to increase the biohydrogen (BioH2) yield. Operation conditions were constant pH 5.50 ± 0.50, T = 35 °C and a carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio of 30. It is noteworthy that DF with HRT = 9 h obtained the highest yields of organic matter degradation, and BioH2 in biogas (~60%) was attributed to the adjustment of pH and the codigestion buffer capacity. During DF with HRT = 9, the reactor was 11 times more productive with regards to HRT = 3 h, resulting in its performance with a better yield mean (6.22 mmol H2 g COD−1) and productivity (0.35 LH2 L−1 d) than other HRTs with lower records of 0.42 mmol H2 g COD−1 and 0.05 LH2 L−1 d, respectively. The high abundance of native populations (Lactobacillus and Lactococcus) and intrinsic inoculum (Citrobacter) led to the highest BioH2 production. Most of the production of acetic acid ~590 mg L−1 and butyric acid ~450 mg L−1 confirmed that BioH2 is mainly produced by acetic and butyric metabolic routes, and a direct relation with the percentage of retention of total suspended solids was also found, supporting the biodegradation capacity of the process.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Civil Engineering Faculty, especially the Environmental Engineering Department, for providing its support in the installation of the infrastructure necessary to study bioenergy generation. ACM wishes to thank CONACyT for their support provided through scholarship no. 717875.

Funding

The study has been funded by the CONACyT-SENER-Sustentabilidad Energética provided through Project 249908.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Facultad de Ingeniería Civil, Departamento de Ingeniería Ambiental, Av. Universidad S/N, Cd. Universitaria, San Nicolás de los Garza, NL, 66455, México

    Arquímedes Cruz-López, Alfredo Cruz-Méndez, Santiago Iván Suárez-Vázquez, Lirio M. Reyna-Gómez & D. E. Pecina-Chacón

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Facultado de Ingeniería Civil, Cuerpo Académico de Geoingeniería Ambiental, Av. Universidad S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, 66455, México

    Arquímedes Cruz-López, Santiago Iván Suárez-Vázquez & Héctor de León Gómez

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  1. Arquímedes Cruz-López
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  2. Alfredo Cruz-Méndez
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  3. Santiago Iván Suárez-Vázquez
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Cruz-López, A., Cruz-Méndez, A., Suárez-Vázquez, S.I. et al. Effect of Hydraulic Retention Time on Continuous Biohydrogen Production by the Codigestion of Brewery Wastewater and Cheese Whey. Bioenerg. Res. 17, 1155–1166 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-022-10399-0

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