Environmental Engineering / Çevre Mühendisliği

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/4321

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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 14
    Citation - Scopus: 17
    Cleaner Production of Biohydrogen Using Poplar Leaves: Experimental and Optimization Studies
    (Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2024) Goren, A. Yagmur; Kenez, Muratcan; Dincer, Ibrahim; Khalvati, Ali
    Biohydrogen (bioH2) is recognized as a potential carbon-neutral energy vector, and developing novel methods has received increasing attention with a prime goal of producing H2 more efficient and cost effective manner. This study aimed to develop a unique reactor to investigate dark fermentative H2 production from poplar biomass using commercially available and inexpensive microorganism cultures. Therefore, six factors of the Box-Behnken design (BBD) were performed to evaluate the individual and combined effects of operational param-eters: acid concentration (2-10%), biomass concentration (2-10 g), initial pH (5-8), temperature (30-40 degrees C), mixing ratio (150-350 rpm), and microorganism concentration (2-6 g) on bioH2 production. Among the oper-ational parameters, the acid concentration was the most effective parameter on bioH2 production. The bioH2 production increased from 11.33 to 18.15 mg/g biomass with increasing acid concentration from 6 to 10%. Moreover, the optimum levels of operational variables were as follows: acid concentration of 9.9%, biomass amount of 2 g, pH of 6.56, temperature of 35 degrees C, mixing ratio of 345 rpm, and microorganism amount of 4.5 g for the highest bioH2 production of 20 mg/g-biomass according to the experimental design. Consequently, the bioH2 production performance of the dark fermentation process showed that bioH2 production from poplar biomass using commercially available microorganisms had a competitive advantage.
  • Review
    Citation - WoS: 60
    Citation - Scopus: 66
    A Comprehensive Review on Environmental and Economic Impacts of Hydrogen Production From Traditional and Cleaner Resources
    (Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2023) Goren, A. Yagmur; Dincer, Ibrahim; Khalvati, Ali; Gören, Ayşegül Yağmur; Dinçer, İbrahim
    This review paper considered the potential hydrogen (H2) production methods using conventional fossil fuels and in a cleaner manner with biomass and water resources and evaluated them for economic sustainability, environmental impact, and energy efficiency. The study results revealed that the methods of biomass-based hydrogen production (e.g., photo-fermentation (PF), dark fermentation (DF), and microbial electrolysis cell (MEC)), by energy source, appear to more environmentally friendly than the other evaluated methods in terms of emissions since they offer the potential to significantly reduce CO2 releases when their substrates are derived from renewable resources or wastes. Among the biomass-based processes, the PF is the most environmentally friendly H2 production process, presenting a low global warming potential (GWP) value of 1.88 kgCO2 eq./kgH2 and acidification potential (AP) of 0.003 gSO2/kgH2, it is followed by DF and MEC processes. On the other hand, the highest GWP of 19.85 kgCO2 eq./kgH2 and AP 0.139 kgSO2/kg H2 were obtained for the fossil fuel-based gasification process related to coal mining and transportation operations. Although hydrogen production processes seem to consume high amounts of water sources, such as about 9 kg of water consumed for 1 kg of hydrogen produced during conventional electrolysis, the reality is that in the hydrogen ecosystem the water footprint of the process is reduced drastically where hydrogen is employed as fuel in fuel cell systems and converted back to water while generating electricity. So, the hydrogen ecosystem may diligently be recognized as the water conserving cycle. On the other hand, the study results showed that commercially available fossil fuel based (e.g., coal) gasification and steam-methane reforming processes are more advantageous over other lab scale technologies in terms of cost and process efficiency. Nevertheless, rising carbon costs may reduce the reasonable price of fossil-based H2 and promote the cost-competitiveness of biomass-based renewable H2. Overall ranking results also proved that biomass-based H2 production processes are primarily promising options for H2 production in an environmentally friendly and moderately cost-effective way.
  • Review
    Citation - WoS: 22
    Citation - Scopus: 30
    Comparative Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Biohydrogen Production Methods
    (Elsevier, 2023) Goren, A. Yagmur; Dincer, Ibrahim; Khalvati, Ali; Gören, Ayşegül Yağmur; Dinçer, İbrahim
    As energy crisis is recognized as an increasingly serious concern, the topic on biohydrogen (bioH(2)) production, which is renewable and eco-friendly, appears to be a highly-demanding subject. Although bioH(2) production technologies are still at the developmental stage, there are many reported works available on lab- and pilot-scale systems with a promising future. This paper presents various potential methods of bioH(2) production using biomass resources and comparatively assesses them for environmental impacts with a special emphasis on the specific biological processes. The environmental impact factors are then normalized with the feature scaling and normalization methods to evaluate the environmental sustainability dimensions of each bioH(2) production method. The results reveals that the photofermentation (PF) process is more environmentally sustainable than the other investigated biological and thermochemical processes, in terms of emissions, water-fossil-mineral uses, and health issues. The global warming potential (GWP) and acidification potential (AP) for the PF process are then found to be 1.88 kg-CO2 eq. and 3.61 g-SO2 eq., which become the lowest among all processes, including renewable energy-based H-2 production processes. However, the dark fermentation-microbial electrolysis cell (DF-MEC) hybrid process is considered the most environmentally harmful technique, with the highest GWP value of 14.6 kg-CO2 eq. due to their superior electricity and heat requirements. The water conception potential (WCP) of 84.5 m(3) and water scarcity footprint (WSF) of 3632.9 m(3) for the DF-MEC process is also the highest compared to all other processes due to the huge amount of wastewater formation potential of the system. Finally, the overall rankings confirm that biological processes are primarily promising candidates to produce bioH(2) from an environmentally friendly point of view.