Biological Hydrogen and Methane Production in from Food Waste in Two-stage CSTR

Total energy recovery from food waste fermentation in a two-stage 5-L CSTR system, in which hydrogen and methane production were sequential setup, was evaluated. The first -stage hydrogen, and the second-stage methane were produced under mesophilic fermentation with the initial pH 6 and 7; and hydraulic retention time of 12 and 24 h, respectively. The results showed that the hydrogen and methane yields were 292.7 and 391.6 mL g(-1) VS at the steady stage operation. The methane yield in the one-stage from food waste fermentation were 364.3 mL g(-1) VS. The total energy recovery from two-stage process was 6.5x10(-2) kW-h, while that from one-stage process was 4.7x10(-2) kW-h. The research study found that the total energy recovery from a two-stage fermentation process consisting of hydrogen and methane production potential high energy than one-stage methane production. Clostridium sp. and Lactobacillus are dominant bacteria in the hydrogen fermentation under the steady state operation. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD)