Biohydrogen production from wood-dust

mahogany (Swietenia mahagony) by dark

fermentation using Enterobacter aerogenes:
effect of ozone pretreatment time and pH
I R Praptyana1*and Budiyono2
1
Master Program of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Semarang, Indonesia
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Semarang, Indonesia

Abstract. As a result of the large-scale exploitation of fossil energy, the

availability of non-renewable energy sources as the main energy source has
decreased dramatically in the last two decades. Biomass is a versatile
renewable energy source. Wood-dust mahogany is an agricultural waste
and one of the most commonly found biomass in Indonesia that can be
converted into biohydrogen by dark fermentation. However, the lignin
content causes the hydrolysis process and biohydrogen production run
slowly. Therefore, ozone pretreatment is necessary to degrade lignin. In
this biohydrogen research the effect of pH and ozonation pretreatment time
on characteristics of wood-dust mahogany, biohydrogen formation rate and
its kinetic will be studied. This research was conducted in 3 stages
consisting of preparation stage, ozone pretreatment stage and biohydrogen
fermentation stage. The variations of the ozone pretreatment observed
factor are 3, 7, 11 for pH and 15, 45 minutes for ozonation time.
Biohydrogen fermentation using Enterobacter aerogenes for 26 hours will
be the last stage. The biohydrogen gas was analyzed using water
displacement method for its volumetric measurement every 2 hours and
used for kinetic study of biohydrogen production using modified Gompertz
model. The result of experiment demonstrate that ozone pretreatment
leaded to wood-dust mahogany surface structure change and has a positive
impact on increasing the rate of biohydrogen formation. Meanwhile, the
best ozone pretreatment pH was at alkaline environment (pH 11). The
kinetic result using modified Gompertz model could be well fitted (R2
0.995-0.988) to the experimental results.

* Corresponding author: intadaroh.rahila@gmail.com