Abstract
Microbial electrolysis of an aqueous phase generated from catalytic pyrolysis of pine sawdust was investigated for renewable hydrogen production. The microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) performance was investigated at an organic loading rate ranging from 2 to 50 g/L-day. A maximum hydrogen productivity of 5.8 ± 0.18 L/L-day was obtained, however, the productivity increased linearly only up to a loading rate of 10 g/L-day. The highest current density achieved was 6.8 ± 0.1 A/m2. The efficiency of conversion of the substrate to current in the anode decreased with increasing loading, but the initial maximum Coulombic efficiency was 98 ± 0.04%. The cathode efficiency, on the other hand, increased with loading up to a maximum of 89 ± 1.4%. Total hydrogen recovery was relatively constant for most runs at 30%, which is equivalent to an yield of 0.6 moL H2/mole COD, except at the highest loading rate. The operation of the MEC under batch mode, however, resulted in a higher hydrogen recovery of 63 ± 4%. The conversion of a wide range of compounds, including carboxylic acids, anhydrosugars, furanic and phenolic compounds present in the aqueous phase is reported. The results demonstrate potential for hydrogen production from a waste stream which can improve the total biofuel or energy yield of the biorefinery.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Biomass and Bioenergy |
| Volume | 119 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2018 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy . This article is based upon work supported by the Bioenergy Technologies Office within the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Carbon, Hydrogen and Separations Efficiency for Bio-oil Pathways (CHASE) program. Funding from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Seed Money Program is also acknowledged. AJL was partially supported by the Bredesen Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Education. The authors would like to thank Doug Elliott and Karl Albrecht from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for analytical data on the CPAP and facilitating a collaboration with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. We would like to acknowledge Christian Lindfors and Anja Oasmaa from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for providing the catalytic pyrolysis aqueous phase derived from pine sawdust, its preliminary analysis and for reviewing this manuscript. We would like to acknowledge the analytical support provided by Shoujie Ren. Finally, we acknowledge the support in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) under the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships Program (SULI) program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. This manuscript has been co-authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
Keywords
- Bio-oil
- Bioelectrochemical
- Biofilms
- Biorefinery
- Catalytic pyrolysis
- Lignocellulosic