Study of the dark fermentative hydrogen production using modified ADM1 models

This paper presents a numerical study of the fermentation pathway of a bacterial consortium during production of hydrogen from glucose using three kinetic models. Mathematical expressions were used to describe glucose consumption, microbial growth and the production of hydrogen and metabolites. The numerical results show a good agreement with the experimental data. Microbial growth was described using three different kinetic models. A correction factor (CF) was added to the “Anaerobic Digestion Model number 1” (ADM1) using the Modified Model Aiba Kinetic model (MMAK-CF), allowing to improve the model agreement. Different initial concentrations of substrate were used to study their effect on hydrogen production and bacterial growth. The results show that the cumulative produced hydrogen increases with increasing the substrate concentration to reach a maximum. An optimal value was calculated at the initial substrate concentration of 0.022 mol L−1. Bacterial growth followed the same trend. It was concluded that high substrate concentrations inhibit bacterial growth and hydrogen production, which can distort the metabolism of microorganisms.