Experimental investigation of a unique electro-biomembrane based integrated system for wastewater treatment and simultaneous clean water, hydrogen and energy production

This paper concerns the design, development, and building of a unique electro-bio-membrane reactor for concurrent bioH₂ production, desalination, and energy production by microorganisms in a single reactor. The effects of varying biomass amounts (5–50 g) and inoculum amounts (250–1500 mL) on the bioH₂ production efficiency are also investigated.

The lowest cumulative bioH₂ yield of 24.2 mL/g is obtained using a biomass amount of 5 g, while it is 44.7 mL/g at a biomass amount of 50 g. The highest H₂ production from water electrolysis is also found as 0.719 mL/min under improved conditions.

Furthermore, the highest power and current density values are 2794.5 mW/m² and 2786.1 mA/m² at 1500 mL inoculum, biomass amount of 30 g, initial pH of 5.5, and a temperature of 37°C in the dark fermentation (DF) cell.

Moreover, the desalination efficiency increases from 41.6% to 65.8% with decreasing inoculum amounts from 1500 to 250 mL.