Producción de hidrógeno a partir de residuos orgánicos

Abstract

Heat and acid pretreatments of the sludge obtained from an anaerobic digester have been used to inhibit the activity of the H2 consumers and to harvest high yield of H2 at two incubation temperatures (35 and 55ºC). The best results was found with the heat pretreated microbial community (HPMC) incubated at 35ºC, 99% removal of 10 g glucose/L in 24 h and a yield of2.8 mol H2/mol glucose. Also, batch tests were conducted at increasing initial glucose concentrations (3to30 g/L) using HPMC. The maximum H2 production (461 mL) and yield (3.6 molH2/mol glucose) were accomplished with 15 and 10g glucose /L, respectively. Acetic acid was the major metabolic product present in the systems with higher yields. Using a concentration of 10 g glucose/L and the HPMC, a combination of anaerobic reactor and PEMFC could generate electricity with an output power, voltage and current of 0.1W, 1.03 V and 0.068 A, respectively.