Biohydrogen production under hyper salinity stress by an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor with mixed culture

This study investigated the effect of organic loading rate (OLR) and NaCl concentration on biohydrogen production by preheated anaerobic sludge in a lab scale anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) fed with glucose during long time operation.

During ASBR operation, the OLR was increased in steps from 0.5 to 5 g glucose/L.d and NaCl addition started at an OLR of 5 g glucose/L.d, to obtain NaCl concentrations in the reactor in the range of 0.5-30 g/L.

With an increasing OLR from 0.5 to 5 g glucose/L.d, the biohydrogen yield increased and reached 0.8 ± 0.4 mol H₂/mol glucose at an OLR of 5 g glucose/L.d. A NaCl concentration of 0.5 g/L resulted in a higher yield of biohydrogen (1.1 ± 0.2 mol H₂/mol glucose). Concentrations above 0.5 g/L NaCl led to decreasing biohydrogen yield and the lowest yield (0.3 ± 0.1 mol H₂/mol glucose) was obtained at 30 g/L of NaCl. The mass balance errors for C, H, and O in all constructed stoichiometric reactions were below 5%.

The modified Monod model indicated that r (H2)max and Ccrit values were 23.3 mL H2/g VSS/h and 119.9 g/L, respectively. Additionally, ASBR operation at high concentrations of NaCl shifted the metabolic pathway from acidogenic toward solventogenic.