Abstract
Hydrogen fermentation and COD removal from four kinds of wastewaters, respectively, with concentrated glucose, lactose, sucrose, starch were investigated using a special consortium of anaerobic bacteria in chemostat-type reactors at 35°C. The experiment was conducted by varying the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the reactor from 3.0 to 24.0 hours in 7 steps. The optimum HRT for hydrogen fermentation of various wastewaters ranged from 6 to 8 hours, at which the biogas produced from each substrate was mainly composed of hydrogen (40%) and carbon dioxide (60%), and hydrogen production yield ranged 9.23-11.0mmol/g-substrate. As a result, the COD removal reached to about 30-40%. The stoichiometric equation and all the kinetic parameters were determined for the hydrogen fermentation of each substrate.
