Thursday 1 November 2018 16:00 – 17:00 A. Payatakes Seminar Room
Dr. Georgia Antonopoulou Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences (ICE-HT)
Abstract
Anaerobic digestion is a mature biological conversion process in which biomass is transformed into biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. The process can be oriented towards dark fermentation, where hydrogen might be produced instead of methane, by controlling operational parameters such as the reactor pH and hydraulic retention time (HRT), inhibiting thus the methanogenesis. In this presentation, fermentative hydrogen production and anaerobic digestion of wastes /wastewaters or energy crops with readily fermentable sugars will be discussed. The factors affecting both processes will be analyzed and correlated with the main metabolites which are produced. In the sequel, the use of lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock for the production of secondgeneration biofuels, such as biohydrogen and biomethane will be considered. Lignocellulosic biomass consists of holocelluloses (cellulose, hemicellulose) and lignin, which vary quantitatively and qualitatively according to the plant material. The presence of lignin is apparently the most important factor affecting the biodegradability of lignocellulosic materials, although other factors such as the crystallinity of cellulose and the accessible surface area may also play an important role. Hence, in the present study, different pretreatment schemes will be analyzed for enhancing the yields and rates of biohydrogen and biomethane production from different kind of lignocellulosic materials.