Effect of short-time hydrothermal pretreatment of kitchen waste on biohydrogen production: fluorescence spectroscopy...

The enhancement of bio-hydrogen production from kitchen waste by a short-time hydrothermal pretreatment at different temperatures (i.e., 90°C, 120°C, 150°C and 200°C) was evaluated. The effects of temperature for the short-time hydrothermal pretreatment on kitchen waste protein conversion and dissolved organic matter characteristics were investigated in this study. A maximum bio-hydrogen yield of 81.27mL/g VS was acquired at 200°C by the short-time hydrothermal pretreatment during the anaerobic fermentative hydrogen production. Analysis of the dissolved organic matter composition showed that the protein-like peak dominated and that three fluorescent components were separated using fluorescence excitation-emission matrix spectra coupled with the parallel factor model. The maximum fluorescence intensities of protein-like components decomposed through the parallel factor analysis has a significant correlation with the raw protein concentration, showed by further correlation analysis. This directly impacted the hydrogen production ability.