Hydrogen has been considered an alternative energy source to fossil fuels. Its production methods, however, determine its sustainability. Globally, the production of green hydrogen is the result of the electrolysis of water, which requires high-quality water obtained from energy-intensive processes such as reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodeionization (EDU). Alternative and more sustainable methods to obtain hydrogen can improve the efficiency of its production and add value to discarded waste streams. By using microbial processes (e.g., dark fermentation) biohydrogen (BioH2) can be recovered from non-competing feedstocks such as food processing wastewater (e.g., winery and sugarbeet). Different waste-to-bioH2 technologies have evolved in the past years, nevertheless, technical considerations such as microbial competition, the need for stringent pH control, and biomass washout limit their deployment. Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) require lower HRTs than conventional systems (e.g., CSTR and UASB), enhance biomass retention, achieve higher COD removal, and enhance biogas production.  In this study, an AnMBR treatment process was modeled and simulated using commercially available software (i.e., SIMBA), to evaluate the technical feasibility of bioH2 production from winery wastewater. The average composition of the winery wastewater was 8240 mg of total COD/L, 15 mg of P/L, 80 mg of N/L, and pH 7.0. The soluble COD was estimated to be 65% and 15% inert organic material.  To obtain the optimal H2 production, operational parameters were selected to maintain a permeate COD higher than 2000 mg L-1 (for further H2 recovery), reactor’s pH above 5.0, and MLVSS in the range of 10 to 20 g L-1 to decrease membrane fouling. Simulations showed that the maximum hydrogen production is 68.6 kg/d, with STR of 7 days, and HTR of 9.4 days. The production has an energy equivalence of 215 MWh/year or 1,73 kWh/m3. Considering the AnMBR demand of 162 MWh/year, the potential availability of energy is 53.4 MWh/year, which is between 1-8% of total energy consumption in wineries.  Using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, the sustainability of the system in the winery production industry is evaluated and discussed.

Membrane technology for waste-to-bioH2: Process modeling and sustainability

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ACS Fall 2022

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