• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.668-673
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• 2012

Biohydrogen production from organic wastewater by anaerobically activated sludge fermentation has already been extensively investigated, and it is known that hydrogen can be produced by glucose fermentation through three metabolic pathways, including the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvic acid to acetyl-CoA, oxidation of NADH to $NAD^+$, and acetogenesis by hydrogen-producing acetogens. However, the exact or dominant pathways of hydrogen production in the anaerobically activated sludge fermentation process have not yet been identified. Thus, a continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) was introduced and a specifically acclimated acidogenic fermentative microflora obtained under certain operation conditions. The hydrogen production activity and potential hydrogen-producing pathways in the acidogenic fermentative microflora were then investigated using batch cultures in Erlenmeyer flasks with a working volume of 500 ml. Based on an initial glucose concentration of 10 g/l, pH 6.0, and a biomass of 1.01 g/l of a mixed liquid volatile suspended solid (MLVSS), 247.7 ml of hydrogen was obtained after a 68 h cultivation period at $35{\pm}1^{\circ}C$. Further tests indicated that 69% of the hydrogen was produced from the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvic acid, whereas the remaining 31% was from the oxidation of NADH to $NAD^+$. There were no hydrogen-producing acetogens or they were unable to work effectively in the anaerobically activated sludge with a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of less than 8 h.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2018

Renewable energy has been of interests in the area of modern alternative fuels. Biogas is produced in waste landfill sites through anaerobic digestion processes, including hydrolysis, acidogenesis, organic acid fermentation (acetogenesis), and methane fermentation (methanogenesis). High contents of fine dust and moisture limited its utilization for direct combustion, town gas and vehicle fuel. Thus, this study proposed a new design for a cooling device using a centrifugal cyclone for simultaneous removal of fine dust and moisture as a pretreatment in the purification processes. A heat exchanger and an ID fan, which are installed inside and outside of the cyclone, in order to cool the humid gas below the freezing point and form a foggy mist. Such an atmosphere enhanced to capture fine dust as recirculating the cold mist flow. The water removal rate was 80.8% at a relative humidity of 95%, and the particle removal efficiency was 98.3% for $2.5{\mu}m$. Simultaneous removal efficiency was 70.8% and 99.6% for particle and moisture respectively.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2020

With benefits to the human health, environment, economy, and energy, anaerobic digestion (AD) systems have attracted remarkable attention within the scientific community. Anaerobic digestion system is created from (bio)reactors to perform a series of bi-metabolism steps including hydrolysis/acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis. By considering the physical separation of the digestion steps above, AD systems can be classified into single-stage (all digestion steps in one reactor) and multi-stage (digestion steps in various reactors). Operation of the AD systems does not only depend on the type of digestion system but also relies on the interaction among growth factors (temperature, pH, and nutrients), the type of reactor, and operating parameters (retention time, organic loading rate). However, these interactions were often reviewed inadequately for the single-stage digestion systems. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of both single-stage and multi-stage systems as well as the influence of the growth factors, operating conditions, and the type of reactor on them. From those points, the advantages, disadvantages, and application range of each system are well understood.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.30-35
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• 1996

Distillery wastewater was used in a thermophilic laboratory-scale two stage anaerobic digester to test the effects of the redox potential of the first acidogenic reactor on the performance of the system. The digester consisted of first a acidogenic reactor and the an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. The digestor was operated at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 48 h. Under these conditions, about 90% of the chemical oxygen demand as measured by the chromate method ($COD_{cr}$) was removed with a gas production yield of 0.4 l/g-COD removed. The redox potential of the acidogenic reactor was increased when the reactor was purged with nitrogen gas or agitation speed was increased. The increase in reduction potential was accompanied by an increase in acetate production and a decrease in butyrate formation. A similar trend was observed when a small amount of air was introduced into the acidogenic reactor. It is believed that the hydrogen partial pressure in the acidogenic reactor was decreased by the above mentioned treatments. The possible failure of anaerobic digestion processes due to over-loading could be avoided by the above mentioned treatments.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.181-190
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• 2005

Severe loss or hydrogen occurred in most anaerobic hydrogen fermentation reactors. Several selected methods were applied to suppress the consumption of hydrogen and increase the potential of production. As the first trial, pH shock was applied. The pH of reactor was dropped nearly to 3.0 by stopping alkalinity supply and on]y feeding glucose (5 g/L-d). As the pH was increase to $4.8{\pm}0.2,$ the degradation pathway was derived to solventogenesis resulting in disappearance of hydrogen in the headspace. In the aspect of bacterial community, methanogens weren't detected after 22 and 35 day, respectively. Even though, however, there was no methanogenic bacterium detected with fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) method, hydrogen loss still occurred in the reactor showing a continuous increase of acetate when the pH was increased to $5.5{\pm}0.2$. This result was suggesting the possibility of the survival of spore fanning acetogenic bacteria enduring the severely acidic pH. As an alternative and additive method, nitrate was added in a batch experiment. It resulted in the increase of maximum hydrogen fraction from 29 (blank) to 61 % $(500\;mg\;NO_3/L)$. However, unfortunately, the loss of hydrogen occurred right after the depletion of nitrate by denitrification. In order to prevent the loss entangled with acetate formation, $CO_2$ scavenging in the headspace was applied to the hydrogen fermentation with heat-treated sludge since it was the primer of acetogenesis. As the $CO_2$ scavenging was applied, the maximum fraction of hydrogen was enhanced from 68 % to 87 %. And the loss of hydrogen could be protected effectively.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.961-965
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• 2007

In this study, degradation of carbohydrates and composition of fermentative products were investigated in semi-continuous acid fermenter varying hydraulic retention time (HRT). Rice soup was used as a sole substrate for the acid fermentation. Solubilization efficiency of the substrate was higher than 70% for all HRT, however the gas conversion was ignorable implying that most of organic contents in the influent remained in the form of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and ethanol after acid fermentation. The VFAs were the predominant product and the VFAs conversion increased as the HRT decreased. The VFAs conversion reached the maximum value at 12 hr HRT accounting for 70% of the influent COD. Similar to VFAs, ethanol conversion was increased with the decrease of HRT and the maximum ethanol conversion efficiency was 8% at the HRT of 12 hr. Composition of VFAs was markedly dependent on HRT. As HRT increased, the composition of acetic acid was increased as a product of acetogenesis from butyrate, valerate and ethanol. This study demonstrated that HRT affected acid fermentation of a carbohydrate containing organic wastes producing VFAs and ethanol which could be effectively used to compensate the lack of carbon in wastewater for biological nutrient removal.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1869-1879
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• 2000

A series of experiments were conducted for modeling the fate and effect of the coupled oxidation reduction reaction of ethanol and propionate recognized as important intermediates in anaerobic degradation metabolism. Anaerobic kinetics for conversion of propionate and the interaction with ethanol were investigated using the model of specific substrate priority utilization effect. Seed cultures for the experiment were obtained from an anaerobically enriched steady-state propionate master culture reactor (HPr-MCR), ethanol-propionate master culture reactor (EtPr-MCR) and glucose master culture reactor (Glu-MCR). Experiments were consisted of four phases. Phase I, II and III were conducted by fixing the propionate organic loading as 1.0 g COD/L with increasing ethanol loading of 0, 100, 200, 400 and 1,000 mg/L, to find metabolic interaction of ethanol and propionate degradation by each enriched anaerobic culture. In phase IV, different mixing ratios of Glu-MCR and HPr-MCR cultures with fixed propionate organic loading, 1.0 g COD/L, were applied to observe the propionate degradation metabolic behavior. In the results of this study, different pathways of propionate and ethanol conversion were found using a modified competitive inhibition kinetic model. Increase of $K_{s2}$ value reflected the formation of acetate followed by ethanol degradation. In addition. $K_3$ value was increased slightly as the reactions of acetate formation and degradation were occurred in acetoclastic methanogenesis.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.125-133
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• 2012

Anaerobic digestion is an alternative method to digest food wastes and to produce methane that can be used as a renewable energy source. We investigated bacterial and archaeal community structures in a three-stage methane production process using food wastes with concomitant wastewater treatment. The three-stage methane process is composed of semianaerobic hydrolysis/acidogenic, anaerobic acidogenic, and strictly anaerobic methane production steps in which food wastes are converted methane and carbon dioxide. The microbial diversity was determined by the nucleotide sequences of 16S rRNA gene library and quantitative real-time PCR. The major eubacterial population of the three-stage methane process was belonging to VFA-oxidizing bacteria. The archaeal community consisted mainly of two species of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus). Family Picrophilaceae (Order Thermoplasmatales) was also observed as a minor population. The predominance of hydrogenotrophic methanogen suggests that the main degradation pathway of this process is different from the classical methane production systems that have the pathway based on acetogenesis. The domination of hydrogenotrophic methanogen (Methanoculleus) may be caused by mesophilic digestion, neutral pH, high concentration of ammonia, short HRT, and interaction with VFA-oxidizing bacteria (Tepidanaerobacter etc.).