Evaluation of fermentation effluent as substrate for single chamber MEC

July September 2019 93 JCPS Volume 12 Issue 3 Evaluation of fermentation effluent as substrate for single chamber MEC T. R. Manikkandan*, Sonia K. Samson Department of Chemical Engineering, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram, Tamilnadu-608 002, India *Corresponding author: E-Mail: trm_tech@yahoo.co.in ABSTRACT Microbial consortium from ethanol plant was used as an inoculum for biofilm formation on electrode. A stable open circuit voltage of 0.32V was obtained after 5 days of operation, which then transferred to MEC as bioanode. By varying the applied voltage from 0.4V to 0.8V, 0.6V was found as the optimum for hydrogen production by single chamber MEC using fermentation effluent as feed. At the optimum substrate concentration of 15 g COD/L, maximum hydrogen yield of 121.59 mL H2/g COD was obtained with an overall hydrogen recovery efficiency of 6.6%.