Biotransformation of Furanic and Phenolic Compounds with Hydrogen Gas Production in a Microbial Electrolysis Cell

By Zeng, Xiaofei; Borole, Abhijeet P & Pavlostathis, Spyros G.
Published in Environmental Science \& Technology NULL 2015

Abstract

Furanic and phenolic compounds are problematic byproducts resulting from the breakdown of lignocellulosic biomass during biofuel production. The capacity of a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) to produce hydrogen gas (H?) using a mixture of two furanic (furfural, FF; 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, HMF) and three phenolic (syringic acid, SA; vanillic acid, VA; and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, HBA) compounds as the substrate in the bioanode was assessed. The rate and extent of biotransformation of the five compounds, efficiency of H? production, as well as the structure of the anode microbial community were investigated. The five compounds were completely transformed within 7-day batch runs and their biotransformation rate increased with increasing initial concentration. At an initial concentration of 1,200 mg/L (8.7 mM) of the mixture of the five compounds, their biotransformation rate ranged from 0.85 to 2.34 mM/d. The anode coulombic efficiency was 44-69\%, which is comparable to wastewater-fed MECs. The H? yield varied from 0.26 to 0.42 g H?-COD/g COD removed in the anode, and the bioanode vol

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