Abstract
Biohydrogen is a clean and viable energy carrier generated through various green and renewable energy sources such as biomass. This review focused on the application of membrane bioreactors (MBRs), emphasizing the combination of these devices with biological processes, for bio-derived hydrogen production. Direct biophotolysis, indirect biophotolysis, photo-fermentation, dark fermentation, and conventional techniques are discussed as the common methods of biohydrogen production. The anaerobic process membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) technology is presented and discussed as a preferable choice for producing biohydrogen due to its low cost and the ability of overcoming problems posed by carbon emissions. General features of AnMBRs and operational parameters are comprehensively overviewed. Although MBRs are being used as a well-established and mature technology with many full-scale plants around the world, membrane fouling still remains a serious obstacle and a future challenge. Therefore, this review highlights the main benefits and drawbacks of MBRs application, also discussing the comparison between organic and inorganic membranes utilization to determine which may constitute the best solution for providing pure hydrogen. Nevertheless, research is still needed to overcome remaining barriers to practical applications such as low yields and production rates, and to identify biohydrogen as one of the most appealing renewable energies in the future.
Highlights
Hydrogen is the simplest and the most abundant element on Earth, and it can be found in many sources such as water, hydrocarbon fuels, inorganic substances, etc
Since anaerobic process membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) is a widespread technology used for wastewater treatment and biohydrogen production, a comprehensive study about the benefits and constraints is of particular interest in order to identify how to operate an AnMBR-based process
The integration of advanced oxidation processes with membrane bioreactors (MBRs) or electrocoagulation with MBRs, the integration of microbial fuel cells to MBRs (MFC-MBR), improving aeration system in MBRs to reduce concentration polarization, increasing turbulent shear stress, mechanical cleaning of membrane fouling by equipping MBRs with biofilm carriers (BCs), application of shear-enhanced membranes such as rotating and vibrating membranes and using rotating annular membrane filters are some of the strategies recommended in different studies, ensuring high levels of fouling mitigation in
Summary
Hydrogen is the simplest and the most abundant element on Earth, and it can be found in many sources such as water, hydrocarbon fuels, inorganic substances, etc. Various biological processes using different hydrogen producing microorganisms in various bioreactors were studied and proposed in the specialized literature for biohydrogen production [2,3,4,5] These processes are operated at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, requiring a lower amount of energy. Substrates are converted by anaerobic bacteria grown in the dark This technique is considered to be more feasible and cost effective than light-dependent processes, with net energy ratio of 1.9 [8,9]. High conversion efficiency and less sludge production are some of the advantages of AnMBRs utilization over conventional CSTRs. Operating conditions of the fermentation process (e.g., pH, temperature, hydrogen partial pressure, mass transfer, substrate concentration, etc.). Regarding the fact that the success of biohydrogen results to be dependent on the successfulness of the downstream purification technology, the proper membranes for biohydrogen purification are presented along with essential separation conditions in the last section of this review
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