Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Engineering Science

Program

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Supervisor

Prof. George Nakhla

2nd Supervisor

Prof. M. Hesham El Naggar

Joint Supervisor

Abstract

An evaluation of single-stage and two-stage anaerobic digestion processes for biomethane and biohydrogen production using thin stillage was performed to assess the viability of biohydrogen production from thin stillage and the impact of separating the acidogenic and methanogenic stages on anaerobic digestion with hydrogen production in the first stage. A comparative evaluation of anaerobic digester sludge (ADS) and acclimatized anaerobic digester sludge (AADS) for biohydrogen production was performed at various S°/X° ratios. The optimum range of S°/X° ratio for hydrogen production was found to be 1 to 2 gCOD/gVSS using conventional ADS and 3 to 6 gCOD/gVSS using AADS. Maximum methane yields of 0.33 L CH4/gCODadded and 0.26 L CH4/gCODadded were achieved in the two-stage and the single-stage processes, respectively. An artificial neural network model was developed to estimate the hydrogen production profile with time in batch studies and successfully predicted it with a correlation coefficient of 0.965.

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