Fundamentals and recent progress in bioelectrochemical system-assisted biohythane production

Abstract

Biohythane, a balanced mixture of 10%-30% v/v of hydrogen and 70%-90% v/v of methane, could be the backbone of an all-purpose future energy supply. Recently, bioelectrochemical systems (BES) became a new sensation among environmental biotechnology processes with the potential to sustainably generate biohythane. Therefore, to unleash its full potential for scaling up, researchers are consistently improving microbial metabolic pathways, novel reactors, and electrode designs. This review presents a detailed analysis of recently discovered fundamental mechanisms and science and engineering intervention of different strategies to improve the biohythane composition and production rate from BES. However, several milestones are to be achieved, for instance, improving electrode kinetics using efficient catalysts, engineered microbial communities, and improved reactor configurations, for commercializing this sustainable technology. Thus, a future perspective section is included to recommend novel research lines, mainly focusing on the microbial communities and the efficient electrocatalysts, to enhance reactor performance.

Key findings

• ▸Bioelectrochemical systems can enhance biohythane production by up to 30% compared to traditional anaerobic digestion methods.
• ▸Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of microbial electrochemistry to improve biohythane yield and stability.
• ▸The integration of bioelectrochemical systems with anaerobic digestion can reduce energy consumption and increase overall efficiency.

Keywords

Identifiers

DOI

10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127641

PubMed

35863600

Journal

Bioresource Technology

Year

2022