Brewery Effluent as the Promising Substrate Source for Hydrogen Production Using Various Mixed Microbial Consortia

Brewery effluent with COD of 3600 mg/l was used as the substrate for hydrogen production in the present study. Inhibition of methanogenic activity by three pretreatment processes was studied and effective pretreatment, heat and acid treatment, was adopted for all the studies. Hydrogen production efficiencies of three different mixed microbial communities from sewage sludge, mangroves and hot springs are compared. In the pH optimization studies, pH in the range of 4.5 to 7.0 with 0.5 intervals were studied and 6.5 was found to be optimum for sewage mixed consortia (SMC), 6.0 for both mangrove (MAN) and hot spring (HS) mixed consortia. SMC has shown its optimum production at 55C, MAN at 50C and using HS, hydrogen yield was increased up to 60C. Maximum hydrogen production of 293 ml / liter of brewery effluent was obtained with SMC as the inoculum at 55C and pH 6.5.