A review on anaerobic membrane bioreactors: Applications, membrane fouling and future perspectives

Utilization of waste sludge as a renewable resource for energy recovery is the appropriate solution of how to manage the continuously increasing waste sludge generation effectively in order to meet stringent environmental quality standards, and at the same time, how to sustain the supply of reliable and affordable energy for our future generations and ourselves. The valuable characteristics of sludge, including high energy and nutrient content, with the stringent criteria of sludge disposal, driving the environmental engineers and scientist to change their standpoint to considering sludge as a viable resource of energy instead of a waste. It may be an important move towards the development of a sustainable energy solution to fulfill present and future energy requirements and thus reduce the dependency on non-renewable resource. Thus, this review discusses about the type of resources that can be recovered from waste sludge and, conventional and emerging methods used to convert the sludge into valuable resources. Moreover, the major factors involved in the process, stage of application, advantages and possible drawbacks of the methods are also discussed.

Sludge: A waste or renewable source for energy and resources recovery?

Anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis is a hydrogen production method that is achieved with an AEM, using electricity. One of the major advantages of AEM water electrolysis is the replacement of conventional noble metal electrocatalysts with low cost transition metal catalysts. AEM electrolysis is still a developing technology; therefore, with a view to using it to eventually achieve commercially viable hydrogen production, AEM electrolysis requires further investigation and improvements, specifically regarding its power efficiency, membrane stability, robustness, ease of handling, and cost reduction. This review addresses state of the art technology of AEM electrolysis for hydrogen production. It also provides a summary of important research that has been carried out on membranes, electrocatalysts, and ionomers used in AEM electrolyzers, and the performance of such electrolyzers. The aim of this review is to identify gaps in AEM water electrolysis research and to make recommendations for future directions in AEM water electrolysis research.

Low cost hydrogen production by anion exchange membrane electrolysis: A review

Renewable and sustainable bioenergies production from palm oil mill effluent (POME): win-win strategies toward better environmental protection.

Production of biohydrogen has the potential to be a renewable alternative to current technologies. There are varieties of technologies for biological hydrogen production mechanisms including biophotolysis, photo fermentation, dark fermentation and hybrid biohydrogen production by electrochemical processes. In these studies, a review on the recent developments of biohydrogen production is presented. First, the theoretical principles of biophotolysis by cyanobacteria and green micro algae, as well as direct and indirect of biophotolysis process on hydrogen production are described. Secondly, practical aspects and fundamental of biological hydrogen production processes by photo and dark fermentation are reviewed. This work also involved comparison of the maximum H2 yield, bacterial strains, operating condition, suitable substrates, and mathematical models for fermentative hydrogen production. A new hybrid biological hydrogen production processes by using the electrochemical process is then proposed. This study can also be used to improve the basic and current knowledge about the performance of the biophotolysis, fermentative and electrochemical process in producing hydrogen gas as the alternate fuel.

Dong-Yeol Lee

Papers

Fermentative hydrogen production from tofu-processing waste and anaerobic digester sludge using microbial consortium

Hydrogen production by anaerobic co-digestion of rice straw and sewage sludge

Continuous hydrogen production from tofu processing waste using anaerobic mixed microflora under thermophilic conditions

Hydrogen and methane production from untreated rice straw and raw sewage sludge under thermophilic anaerobic conditions

Thermophilic fermentative hydrogen production from starch-wastewater with bio-granules