Hydrogen and Methane Production, Energy Recovery, and Organic Matter Removal from Effluents in a Two-Stage Fermentative Process

This study evaluates the potential for using different effluents for simultaneous H₂ and CH₄ production in a two-stage batch fermentation process with mixed microflora. An appreciable amount of H₂ was produced from parboiled rice wastewater (23.9?mL g^?1 chemical oxygen demand COD]) and vinasse (20.8?mL g^?1 COD), while other effluents supported CH₄ generation. The amount of CH₄ produced was minimum for sewage (46.3?mL g^?1 COD), followed by parboiled rice wastewater (115.5?mL g^?1 COD) and glycerol (180.1?mL g^?1 COD). The maximum amount of CH₄ was observed for vinasse (255.4?mL g^?1 COD). The total energy recovery from vinasse (10.4?kJ g^?1 COD) corresponded to the maximum COD reduction (74.7?%), followed by glycerol (70.38?%, 7.20?kJ g^?1 COD), parboiled rice wastewater (63.91?%, 4.92?kJ g^?1 COD), and sewage (51.11?%, 1.85?kJ g^?1 COD). The relatively high performance of vinasse in such comparisons could be attributed to the elevated concentrations of macronutrients contained in raw vinasse. The observations are based on kinetic parameters of H₂ and CH₄ production and global energy recovery of the process. These observations collectively suggest that organic-rich effluents can be deployed for energy recovery with sequential generation of H₂ and CH₄.