Adaptive approaches to achieve long-term process stability and continuous biohydrogen recovery from food waste

This PhD research project focuses on developing adaptive approaches to enable long-term process stability and continuous biohydrogen production from food waste. The UK government recognises hydrogen as a critical energy vector to decarbonise the most challenging areas of the economy. Biological hydrogen production allows for hydrogen production using less energy intensive processes that are more environmentally friendly. The project addresses challenges associated with using food waste as a bioH2 feedstock, particularly its heterogeneity and acidic characteristics that affect process stability. The research will explore the use of low-cost natural resources combined with multi-level process optimisation approaches to enable long-term process stability and continuous bioH2 production from food waste for industrial scale applications. The project will focus on dark fermentation technology for biohydrogen recovery and feasible approaches to integrate the process into existing anaerobic digestion facilities.