IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i19p7065-d925688.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Game Changer: Microfluidic Technology for Enhancing Biohydrogen Production—Small Size for Great Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Anita Šalić

    (Department of Thermodynamics, Mechanical Engineering and Energy, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Marulićev trg 19, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia)

  • Bruno Zelić

    (Department of Reaction Engineering and Catalysis, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Marulićev trg 19, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
    Department of Packaging, Recycling and Environmental Protection, University North, Trg Dr. Žarka Dolinara 1, HR-48000 Koprivnica, Croatia)

Abstract

One of the approaches widely used today to intensify processes is their miniaturization. Small, compact, portable devices that can be used directly in the field will become popular in the near future. The use of microstructured devices is becoming more widespread in diagnostics, analytics, and production, so there is no doubt that the same approach is being applied to energy production. The question is whether it is possible to create an energy production system that has all the external characteristics of a miniaturized device but is sustainable, durable, environmentally friendly, based on renewable sources, and cost-effective. The first challenge is to choose a production route, an energy source that has the required characteristics, and then to adapt this production on a microscale. Among the different energy sources, biohydrogen meets most of the requirements. The carbon emissions of biohydrogen are much lower, and its production is less energy-intensive than conventional hydrogen production. Moreover, it can be produced from renewable energy sources. The challenge today is to make this process sustainable due to the low substrate conversion, production rate, and yield. Microfluidic systems are one of the technologies that could address the above shortcomings of the current biohydrogen production processes. The combination of microdevices and biohydrogen production opens up new possibilities for energy production. Although this area of research is growing, the focus of this review is on the possibility of using microfluidics for biohydrogen production.

Suggested Citation

  • Anita Šalić & Bruno Zelić, 2022. "A Game Changer: Microfluidic Technology for Enhancing Biohydrogen Production—Small Size for Great Performance," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-22, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:19:p:7065-:d:925688
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/7065/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/19/7065/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Siqing Xu & Rong Wang & Thomas Gasser & Philippe Ciais & Josep Peñuelas & Yves Balkanski & Olivier Boucher & Ivan A. Janssens & Jordi Sardans & James H. Clark & Junji Cao & Xiaofan Xing & Jianmin Chen, 2022. "Delayed use of bioenergy crops might threaten climate and food security," Nature, Nature, vol. 609(7926), pages 299-306, September.
    2. Fan Zhang, 2019. "In the Dark," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 30923.
    3. Ghimire, Anish & Frunzo, Luigi & Pirozzi, Francesco & Trably, Eric & Escudie, Renaud & Lens, Piet N.L. & Esposito, Giovanni, 2015. "A review on dark fermentative biohydrogen production from organic biomass: Process parameters and use of by-products," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 73-95.
    4. Gabriel S. Aruwajoye & Alaika Kassim & Akshay K. Saha & Evariste B. Gueguim Kana, 2020. "Prospects for the Improvement of Bioethanol and Biohydrogen Production from Mixed Starch-Based Agricultural Wastes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Pourali, Mostafa & Esfahani, Javad Abolfazli, 2022. "Performance analysis of a micro-scale integrated hydrogen production system by analytical approach, machine learning, and response surface methodology," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    6. Machado, R.G. & Moreira, F.S. & Batista, F.R.X. & Ferreira, J.S. & Cardoso, V.L., 2018. "Repeated batch cycles as an alternative for hydrogen production by co-culture photofermentation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 861-869.
    7. Wang, Junye, 2015. "Theory and practice of flow field designs for fuel cell scaling-up: A critical review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 640-663.
    8. Łukajtis, Rafał & Hołowacz, Iwona & Kucharska, Karolina & Glinka, Marta & Rybarczyk, Piotr & Przyjazny, Andrzej & Kamiński, Marian, 2018. "Hydrogen production from biomass using dark fermentation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 665-694.
    9. Edilson León Moreno Cárdenas & Arley David Zapata-Zapata & Daehwan Kim, 2018. "Hydrogen Production from Coffee Mucilage in Dark Fermentation with Organic Wastes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Azwar, M.Y. & Hussain, M.A. & Abdul-Wahab, A.K., 2014. "Development of biohydrogen production by photobiological, fermentation and electrochemical processes: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 158-173.
    11. Hoang Mai Luong & Minh Thien Pham & Tyler Guin & Richa Pokharel Madhogaria & Manh-Huong Phan & George Keefe Larsen & Tho Duc Nguyen, 2021. "Sub-second and ppm-level optical sensing of hydrogen using templated control of nano-hydride geometry and composition," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Banerjee, Rintu & Kumar, S.P. Jeevan & Mehendale, Ninad & Sevda, Surajbhan & Garlapati, Vijay Kumar, 2019. "Intervention of microfluidics in biofuel and bioenergy sectors: Technological considerations and future prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 548-558.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdelkader Mahammedi & Naas Toufik Tayeb & Kouider Rahmani & Awf Al-Kassir & Eduardo Manuel Cuerda-Correa, 2023. "Exploring the Bioenergy Potential of Microfluidics: The Case of a T-Micromixer with Helical Elements for Sustainable Energy Solutions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-18, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ferraren-De Cagalitan, D.D.T. & Abundo, M.L.S., 2021. "A review of biohydrogen production technology for application towards hydrogen fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Bakonyi, Péter & Buitrón, Germán & Valdez-Vazquez, Idania & Nemestóthy, Nándor & Bélafi-Bakó, Katalin, 2017. "A novel gas separation integrated membrane bioreactor to evaluate the impact of self-generated biogas recycling on continuous hydrogen fermentation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 813-823.
    3. Rajat Kumar Sharma & Mohammad Ali Nazari & Juma Haydary & Triveni Prasad Singh & Sandip Mandal, 2023. "A Review on Advanced Processes of Biohydrogen Generation from Lignocellulosic Biomass with Special Emphasis on Thermochemical Conversion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-27, September.
    4. Tian, Hailin & Li, Jie & Yan, Miao & Tong, Yen Wah & Wang, Chi-Hwa & Wang, Xiaonan, 2019. "Organic waste to biohydrogen: A critical review from technological development and environmental impact analysis perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    5. Palomo-Briones, Rodolfo & Razo-Flores, Elías & Bernet, Nicolas & Trably, Eric, 2017. "Dark-fermentative biohydrogen pathways and microbial networks in continuous stirred tank reactors: Novel insights on their control," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 77-87.
    6. Soares, Juliana Ferreira & Confortin, Tássia Carla & Todero, Izelmar & Mayer, Flávio Dias & Mazutti, Marcio Antonio, 2020. "Dark fermentative biohydrogen production from lignocellulosic biomass: Technological challenges and future prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Gabriel S. Aruwajoye & Alaika Kassim & Akshay K. Saha & Evariste B. Gueguim Kana, 2020. "Prospects for the Improvement of Bioethanol and Biohydrogen Production from Mixed Starch-Based Agricultural Wastes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-22, December.
    8. Yiyang Liu & Jingluo Min & Xingyu Feng & Yue He & Jinze Liu & Yixiao Wang & Jun He & Hainam Do & Valérie Sage & Gang Yang & Yong Sun, 2020. "A Review of Biohydrogen Productions from Lignocellulosic Precursor via Dark Fermentation: Perspective on Hydrolysate Composition and Electron-Equivalent Balance," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-27, May.
    9. Chalima, Angelina & Hatzidaki, Angeliki & Karnaouri, Anthi & Topakas, Evangelos, 2019. "Integration of a dark fermentation effluent in a microalgal-based biorefinery for the production of high-added value omega-3 fatty acids," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C), pages 130-138.
    10. Karolina Kucharska & Patrycja Makoś-Chełstowska & Edyta Słupek & Jacek Gębicki, 2021. "Management of Dark Fermentation Broth via Bio Refining and Photo Fermentation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, October.
    11. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Al-Ansari, Tareq & Inayat, Muddasser & Sulaiman, Shaharin A. & Parthasarathy, Prakash & McKay, Gordon, 2020. "A critical review on the influence of process parameters in catalytic co-gasification: Current performance and challenges for a future prospectus," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Machineni, Lakshmi & Deepanraj, B. & Chew, Kit Wayne & Rao, A. Gangagni, 2023. "Biohydrogen production from lignocellulosic feedstock: Abiotic and biotic methods," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Lui, Jade & Chen, Wei-Hsin & Tsang, Daniel C.W. & You, Siming, 2020. "A critical review on the principles, applications, and challenges of waste-to-hydrogen technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Johannes Full & Steffen Merseburg & Robert Miehe & Alexander Sauer, 2021. "A New Perspective for Climate Change Mitigation—Introducing Carbon-Negative Hydrogen Production from Biomass with Carbon Capture and Storage (HyBECCS)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-22, April.
    15. Giwa, Adewale & Adeyemi, Idowu & Dindi, Abdallah & Lopez, Celia García-Baños & Lopresto, Catia Giovanna & Curcio, Stefano & Chakraborty, Sudip, 2018. "Techno-economic assessment of the sustainability of an integrated biorefinery from microalgae and Jatropha: A review and case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 239-257.
    16. Trchounian, Karen & Sawers, R. Gary & Trchounian, Armen, 2017. "Improving biohydrogen productivity by microbial dark- and photo-fermentations: Novel data and future approaches," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1201-1216.
    17. Roy, Dibyendu & Samanta, Samiran & Roy, Sumit & Smallbone, Andrew & Roskilly, Anthony Paul, 2023. "Multi-objective optimisation of a power generation system integrating solid oxide fuel cell and recuperated supercritical carbon dioxide cycle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    18. Tian, Wenjing & Li, Jianhao & Zhu, Lirong & Li, Wen & He, Linyan & Gu, Li & Deng, Rui & Shi, Dezhi & Chai, Hongxiang & Gao, Meng, 2021. "Insights of enhancing methane production under high-solid anaerobic digestion of wheat straw by calcium peroxide pretreatment and zero valent iron addition," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1321-1332.
    19. Jiraprasertwong, Achiraya & Maitriwong, Kiatchai & Chavadej, Sumaeth, 2019. "Production of biogas from cassava wastewater using a three-stage upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 191-205.
    20. Yang, Guang & Wang, Jianlong, 2018. "Various additives for improving dark fermentative hydrogen production: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 130-146.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:19:p:7065-:d:925688. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.