S. Sethuraman and G. Vennila
Abstract
This work represents the liquefaction studies on jackfruit peel waste to investigate influence of sodium hydroxide addition for hydrogen production in dark fermentation. A new resource of microflora was isolated from sludge by subjecting it to pH adjustment at 5 ± 0.3 coupled with heat treatment at 105°C for 1 h. The isolated microflora exhibited their character to produce hydrogen while treating solid waste consisting of jackfruit peel waste. Liquefaction is the process conversion of solid into a liquid by the process of alkaline hydrolysis. In this paper, the studies on liquefaction was performed for a range of alkali concentrations from 0.1N - 0.5 N, wherein the percentage of liquefaction of 50% and 67% were obtained for 0.1N and 0.2 N respectively. Likewise for 0.3 N, 0.4 N and 0.5N (Normality) of NaOH concentration the percentage of liquefaction obtained were 80%, 63% and 32% in terms of total solid reduction (TS). Similarly the maximum COD solubilization reached 73% on 0.3 N. These results indicate that the highest percentage of liquefaction 80% of total solids reduction and SCOD was obtained at 0.3 N of NaOH with the temperature of 100°C. From the studies on liquefaction, jackfruit peel waste (JFPW) pre-treated with 0.3 N NaOH as substrate, showed maximum hydrogen H2 yield of 0.44L H2/g VS (jackfruit peel) degraded. Whereas jack fruit peel waste pretreated with 0.4 N NaOH yielded 0.25L H2/g VS (jackfruit peel) degraded. The control yielded only 0.24L H2/g VS (jackfruit peel) degraded at the end of 60 days of digestion.