Executive Summary : | Production of hydrogen, an important source of clean energy is mostly governed by the conventional techniques of steam reforming or electrolysis which still involves fossil fuels consumption. Thus, biological approaches are emerged as an important alternative, yet enhancement of the bioH2 production yield is a critical issue for industrial implementation. Membrane based technologies can contribute in this regard in several ways to improve the H2 production yield and downstream processing. The fermentative membrane reactor approach combining fermentation with membrane filtration shows potential in efficient H2 production compared to conventional CSTR systems by independent controlling of important parameters, SRT and HRT, is convenient to operate with low foot print area. In addition, treated effluent obtained is fit for reuse. Here the inhibitors of H2 production originated from fermentation reaction, carboxylic acids and alcohols can be removed with time accelerating production yield of bioH2 and recovery of value-added products, VFA. The present proposal is motivated on addressing the major challenges associated in bioH2 production using fermentative membrane reactor process by mitigating the membrane fouling issues and improvement in biohydrogen yield. A novel ceramic membrane prepared by nanoclay based coating with surface functionalization on clay-alumina substrates, pore size below 100 nm, super hydrophilic and antifouling surface, contact angle below 10o would be used in fermentative bioreactor to prevent fouling and maintain process output. The membranes would provide ease of regeneration, robust with long life time and cost competitive compared with the imported ceramic membranes, thus could be effective for large scale implementation. The process would be designed in bench scale reactor, 100 L using organic rich wastewater as substrate. The efficiency of membranes would be assessed during continuous operation of reactor for several cycles by observing bioH2 yield, flux profile and treated water quality. Kinetic modeling study would be done for process upscaling. Further, development of a novel amino-silane modified porous zeolite NaA embedded system is proposed for enrichment of the obtained bioH2. In our previous in-house works, PVA-Zeolite composite membranes were prepared with less cracks and an effective separation of low molecular weight helium gas. The motivation in incorporation of the amino modified NaA zeolite particles in polymer matrix is to facilitate this as a CO2 carrier enhancing the dipole interaction with Na+ of the zeolite particle that will further increase the absorption of the CO2. While the hydrogen would be used as a clean energy source, the CO2 rich stream would be integrated with an existing photobioreactor system for algal biomass production. Finally techno-economic analysis would be performed to assess efficiency and H2 production cost in comparison with the existing processes like steam reforming. |