Sunday, May 4, 2008
4-16

Swine Manure Fermentation to Produce Biohydrogen

Jun Zhu1, Yecong Li2, Xiao Wu2, Curtis Miller1, Paul Chen3, and Roger Ruan3. (1) Southern Research and Outreach Center, University of Minnesota, 35838 120th Street, Waseca, MN 56093, (2) Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1390 Eckles Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108, (3) Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1390 Eckles Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108

Experiments were conducted to produce hydrogen through fermentation with liquid swine manure as substrate using a semi-continuously-fed fermenter (8 L in total volume and 4 L in working volume). A range of pH for the fermenter was tested (4.7 – 5.6) while temperature was controlled at 35 ± 1oC throughout the experiment. Three hydraulic retention times (16, 20, and 24 h) were investigated for their impact on the efficiency and performance of the fermenter in terms of hydrogen yields. The results indicate that hydraulic retention time (HRT) has a strong influence on the fermenter performance. An increasing HRT would increase the variation in hydrogen concentration in the offgas. To produce hydrogen with a fairly consistent concentration, the HRT of the fermenter should not exceed 16 h. A good hydrogen production was observed when pH was controlled at 5.0. When methane content in the offgas exceeded 2%, an inverse linear relationship between hydrogen and methane was observed with a correlation coefficient of 0.9699. The concentration of hydrogen in the offgas from the fermenter on average was around 15-20% with the highest reaching over 40% after the fermenter entered into steady-state operation.

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