Table Of ContentGreen Energy and Technology
Bernardo Ruggeri
Tonia Tommasi
Sara Sanfilippo
BioH & BioCH
2 4
Through
Anaerobic
Digestion
From Research to Full-scale Applications
Green Energy and Technology
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8059
Bernardo Ruggeri Tonia Tommasi
(cid:129)
Sara Sanfilippo
BioH & BioCH Through
2 4
Anaerobic Digestion
From Research to Full-scale Applications
123
BernardoRuggeri SaraSanfilippo
Department of AppliedScience Department of AppliedScience
andTechnology andTechnology
Politecnico diTorino Politecnico diTorino
Turin Turin
Italy Italy
ToniaTommasi
Center forSpace Human Robotics
IstitutoItaliano diTecnologia
Turin
Italy
ISSN 1865-3529 ISSN 1865-3537 (electronic)
Green Energyand Technology
ISBN 978-1-4471-6430-2 ISBN 978-1-4471-6431-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6431-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014956902
SpringerLondonHeidelbergNewYorkDordrecht
©Springer-VerlagLondon2015
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Non basta guardare, occorre guardare con occhi
che vogliono vedere, che credono in quello che vedono.
Watching is not enough, you need to look
with eyes that want to see, that believe in what they see.
Galileo Galilei
Pisa, 1564—Arcetri, 1642
To my son Diego and my daughter Alice
in the hope that the information contained
herein will contribute to
improve a little bit their world,
and to Mina, who gives my life meaning.
Bernardo Ruggeri
To my husband Miguel and to my family
in Salento (Italy) and Chile, for their
love and support.
Tonia Tommasi
To Amma, who teaches love to humanity;
to my dear partner Alessandro
and to my family, for being part
of my life.
Sara Sanfilippo
Acknowledgments
We are glad to express our gratitude to all the people and institutions involved in
the project of this book, which made this experience possible for us, giving their
support and enabled the results obtained. We would like to thank the Regione
Piemonte for financialsupport under the grant C 16, offering us the opportunity to
workonthisproject;DidactaItaliaforthecontinuoussupportinarrangingthepilot
plant used to carry out the experimental tests. Very special thanks go to Giuseppe
Aghem and Michele Dichiaro of technical area of DISAT (Politecnico di Torino)
fortheirinvaluablesupportduringtherunofexperiments.Wealsowanttoexpress
sinceregratitudetoallthemasterandPhDstudentsfortheirhelpincarryingoutthe
tests and to Milena Bernardi to perform the experimental determinations; her
continuous collaboration makes our work more reliable and stronger. Finally, we
wanttogiveasincerethanktoProf.GiuseppeGenonfortheworkspenttoreadall
theChaptersofthebook;hisownremarksandsuggestionshavepavedtheroadto
the final version of the book.
Lastly, we sincerely thank to the Springer personnel, for their patience and
support in correcting the final version of the manuscript.
Bernardo Ruggeri
Tonia Tommasi
Sara Sanfilippo
ix
Contents
1 Ecological Mechanisms of Dark H Production
2
by a Mixed Microbial Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The Energy Metabolism of Microorganisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 The Tower of Electrons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Electron Carriers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 The Energy Released in Biological Systems. . . . . . . . 5
1.1.4 The Role of Ferredoxin (Fd) and Hydrogenase. . . . . . 8
1.2 General Information on the Dark H Production Process . . . . . 11
2
1.2.1 Differences Between Producers and Consumers
of Hydrogen Bacteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Parameters Affecting HPB Activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.1 Temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.2 pH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.3 Redox Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3.4 Substrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3.5 Nutrients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3.6 H Partial Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2
1.3.7 Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2 Pretreatment to Increase Hydrogen Producing Bacteria (HPB). . . 25
2.1 Physiological Differences Between HPB and HCB . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2 Methods of Obtaining HPB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Experimental Evaluation of Acid Pretreatment
of Anaerobic Microflora to Produce Bio-H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2
2.3.1 Applied Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
xi
xii Contents
3 Kinetics, Dynamics and Yield of H Production by HPB. . . . . . . . 37
2
3.1 Kinetic Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.1 Microorganism Growth Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.2 Kinetic Models of Anaerobic Processes. . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.3 Some Kinetic Models for H Production . . . . . . . . . . 41
2
3.2 Experimental Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.1 HPB Sewage Sludge Enrichment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.2 Fermentation Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.3 Analytical Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.4 Kinetics Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Results and Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.1 Lag Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.2 Exponential Phase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3.3 Kinetics Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3.4 Dynamics of bioH Evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2
3.3.5 Test in Bioreactor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3.6 Yield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Macro-approach and Relaxation Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Application to First-Order Kinetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4 Effect of Temperature on Fermentative
H Production by HPB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2
4.1 Temperature: A Key Factor in Anaerobic Digestion . . . . . . . . 65
4.2 Material and Test Procedure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.1 Apparatus and Operative Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.2 Test with Bioreactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2.3 Monitored Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3 Results of the Test at Ambient Temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3.1 Dynamics of Parameters Monitored. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3.2 Evolution of H Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2
4.3.3 The Significance of Tests at Uncontrolled
Temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.4 Results of Tests at Different Temperatures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.4.1 Comparison Between Tests at Different
Temperatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.4.2 Liquid Products from H Fermentation . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2
4.4.3 Yield of Tests According to Temperatures
and Metabolic Products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.5 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
