Enhancing the biological hydrogen production from different biomass through individual pretreatment method

Abstract Heat, ultrasonication, acid hydrolysis, and integrated treatment were the various pretreatment techniques employed by different substrates. For the two distinct biomass, integrated pretreatment techniques were used, including heat with acid hydrolysis in sugarcane bagasse and heat with ultrasonication in dairy whey (DW). A batch experiment with microorganisms was conducted to produce biohydrogen from dairy whey and sugarcane bagasse using three different pretreatment techniques. The heat-treated DW had a maximum cumulative hydrogen production of 153.4 ± 2.0 mL H2/L, which is 20% more than that of the untreated biomass. After pretreatment, FTIR, XRD, SEM, and EDAX were used to analyse the physicochemical changes in DW and SCB. Untreated and treated waste biomass were analyzed using FTIR spectroscopy to quantify their functional groups. According to EDX results, untreated SCB contains 30% Carbon, 13.71% Oxygen, and 0.50% Nitrogen. SCB was treated with acid using a hydrolysis time of 90mins at 121°C and H2SO4 concentration 2 M the highest cumulative H2 production of 189.6 ± 4.3 mL H2/L was obtained at 37℃ in co-culture. In the future, it may be possible to produce biomass biohydrogen that is both efficient and sustainable based on the findings of this study.