An empirical study of energy conversion from food processing-wastes by the hydrogen and methane two-stage anaerobic fermentation system
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Methane fermentation by the Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) system is extensively applied to treatment of brewery effluents. However, the UASB system is not suited to process solid sludge. Therefore, the feed solution requires a pretreatment to remove any suspended solid matter. This report introduces the hydrogen and methane two-stage anaerobic fermentation system, which produces hydrogen in the former stage and methane in the latter stage, for the purpose of effective treatment by energy conversion from food processing-wastes including solid waste. The hydrogen gas produced from this process will be able to use for a fuel cell, without any chemical converting. By the usual manner, the produced methane can be used as a boiler combustion gas. Therefore, this process will enable the simultaneous supply of electricity and heat. We conducted fermentation and power generation experiments using a bench pilot fermentor and a small-scale fuel cell, respectively. A comparison was made between the two-stage fermentation and the conventional methane single fermentation. The two-stage hydrogen and methane fermentation excelled the methane single fermentation in terms of energy balance.
