Anaerobic Granule Technologies for Hydrogen Recovery from Wastes: The Way Forward

Abstract

The rapid development of hydrogen-producing granule (HPG) technologies in recent years has significantly lifted the productivity and stability of anaerobic hydrogen-producing systems and is driving biohydrogen production to a near-practical level. However, the various HPG processes so far are still in infancy, and there exist many barriers to its application. Moreover, our understanding in this area is rather limited. This review introduces the recent advances of HPG technologies in terms of high-rate bioreactor, microbes, process control, and characterization techniques; highlights the major remaining challenges toward practical implementation; and discusses the future possibilities and directions for a solution.

KEY WORDS:

• characterization
• enhancement technique
• HPG
• hydrogen-producing granule
• hydrogen yield
• HY
• mass transfer
• mixed culture
• scale up
• wastewater

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank the NSFC-JST Joint Project (21021140001), the National 863 Program (2008BADC4B18), the NSFC (51008290), and the Open Project of State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (QAK201015), for the partial support of this study.