(150c) Biological Hydrogen Production From Corn-Syrup Waste Using a Novel System

The patent-pending system comprises a novel biohydrogen reactor with a gravity settler for decoupling of SRT from HRT. The biohydrogenator was operated for 100 days at 37o C, hydraulic retention time 8 h and solids retention time 2.5 days. The feed was a corn-syrup waste from an industrial facility for bioethanol production located at South Western Ontario, Canada. The system was initially started up with a synthetic feed containing glucose at concentration of 8 g/L and other essential in-organics. Anaerobicaly-digested sludge from the St. Marys wastewater treatment plant (St.Mary, Ontario, Canada) was used as the seed. After 10 days, when the hydrogen production was steady, the corn-syrup waste was introduced to the system. Glucose was the main constituent in the corn-syrup; its concentration was varied over a period of 90 days. The first 30 days after start-up, glucose concentration was 8 g/L then it was increased to 16 g/L for 30 days and 25 g/L for the last 30 days. The change in glucose concentration was used to study the impact of variable organic loading on the stability of hydrogen production in the biohydrogenator. The hydrogen production rate increased from 10 LH2/L /d to 32 LH2/L /d with the increase of glucose concentration, while a maximum hydrogen yield of 3.2 mol H2 /mol glucose was achieved in the system with an overall average of 2.9 mol H2 /mol glucose and a standard deviation less than 10 %.