Performance of an innovative two-stage process converting food waste to hydrogen and methane.

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of an innovative two-stage process, BIOCELL, that was developed to produce hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4) from food waste on the basis of phase separation, reactor rotation mode, and sequential batch technique. The BIOCELL process consisted of four leaching-bed reactors for H2 recovery and post-treatment and a UASB reactor for CH4 recovery. The leaching-bed reactors were operated in a rotation mode with a 2-day interval between degradation stages. The sequential batch technique was useful to optimize environmental conditions during H2 fermentation. The BIOCELL process demonstrated that, at the high volatile solids (VS) loading rate of 11.9 kg/m3 x day, it could remove 72.5% of VS and convert VS(removed) to H2 (28.2%) and CH4 (69.9%) on a chemical oxygen demand (COD) basis in 8 days. H2 gas production rate was 3.63 m3/m3 x day, while CH4 gas production rate was 1.75 m3/m3 x day. The yield values of H2 and CH4 were 0.31 and 0.21 m3/kg VS(added), respectively. Moreover, the output from the post-treatment could be used as a soil amendment. The BIOCELL process proved to be stable, reliable, and effective in resource recovery as well as waste stabilization.