Biohydrogen production from sugar industry effluents using nickel based electrode materials in microbial electrolysis cell

Abstract

Biohydrogen production from sugar industry effluents in a dual chamber microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) was investigated in this study. The MEC reactor was operated with different effluents as a substrate from cane sugar and raw sugar reprocessing units of sugar industry. The biohydrogen production was investigated using different cathode materials of Nickel plate, Nickel foam, Stainless Steel mesh. The performance of MEC was tested based on the production of hydrogen, coloumbic efficiency, hydrogen recovery and COD removal efficiency respectively. The MEC hydrogen productions revealed that cane sugar effluent was more effective as compared to raw sugar effluent. The experimental results showed that at an applied voltage of 1.0 V, Ni-foam exhibited maximum hydrogen production of 1.59 and 1.43 mmol/L/D in cane sugar and raw sugar effluents respectively, which was about twice than SS-mesh and 1.2 times Ni-plate. This study shows that Ni-foam is one of the potential candidate as low cost electrode for improving hydrogen production in MEC technology with the treatment of industrial effluents.