Fermentative biohydrogen modelling and optimization research in light of miniaturized parallel bioreactors

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been an upsurge of interest to make a transition from the depleting fossil-based energy sources to renewable ones. Fermentative biohydrogen has been repeatedly flagged as a potential future alternative energy carrier in recent publications. Research towards its scale-up requires accurate and high throughput optimization data on key process parameters. This has been hampered by conflicting findings, potentially owing to research procedures and bioreactor equipments used. This paper reviews the current state of fermentative biohydrogen optimization research on agricultural wastes, using miniaturized parallel bioreactors (MPBs). The monitoring and control of physicochemical parameters on these bioreactors is discussed and the prospect of enhancing biohydrogen process development with a novel featured parallel miniaturized bioreactor is presented.