Urbaniec K., Grabarczyk R., 2012, Techno-economic Assessment of the Fermentative Hydrogen Production from Sugar Beet, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 29, 1081-1086.
Two-stage fermentative hydrogen production process comprising dark fermentation and photofermentation followed by gas upgrading is studied from the technical and economic points of view. It is assumed that the H2 plant is connected with an existing sugar factory so that technical sucrose solutions produced there (raw juice, thick juice and molasses) can be used as fermentation feedstocks. It is shown that the total cost of produced H2 is highly sensitive to the capital and operating costs of the photofermentation stage. Drawing conclusions from the results of a parametric study, the cost structure is reviewed to identify the directions of improvement in the process and equipment.
