Development of a Novel Biochar-Made Porous Monolith for Enhanced C1 and H2 Fermentation

Abstract

Biochar is a carbonous solid that is produced through the thermal processing of biomass under oxygen-limited environment. Nevertheless, biochar is known to be an inexpensive and sustainable raw material with a wide range of potentially use of area. Recently, biochar has been discovered as a strong biological catalyst for anaerobic conversion, mainly due to its porous structure with micro and macro channels, which procures a viable living area for attached-grown (i.e., biofilm) microorganisms. Whereas it is never applied to improve the biological conversion of inorganic gas substances such as C1 (e.g., CO, CO2) and H2, which is a quite trending research and development area since the last decade. In this methodological study, biochar and polystyrene foam (PS) were compounded to create a mouldable composite material.Char-PS composite were casted as a monolith to be used as a gas sparging tool.Biochar-made sparger’s feasibility as a biocatalyst were tested under real conditions and validated as a promising alternative tool for biological gas conversion.

Keywords: Char, Polystyrene, Composite, Biofilm, Sparger, Gas fermentation, Homoacetogen, Power-to-X, Arduino, ChemDuino