Effect of Adding Benzyl Alcohol on Hydrogen Production from Lignite.

Combustion power generation is still the main way of lignite utilization, but lignite combustion will produce a lot of toxic gases, so how to make lignite clean utilization has become an urgent problem to be solved. Hydrogen is an environmentally friendly, zero-carbon emission clean energy because microorganisms can degrade brown coal to produce hydrogen. Therefore, in this experiment, the anaerobic hydrogen production experiment of lignite was carried out, and the influence of different concentrations of benzyl alcohol on hydrogen production of lignite was studied. The results showed that the addition of 500 mg/L benzyl alcohol had the most significant effect on the hydrogen production of lignite, and the total hydrogen production reached 1.70 mL/g, which was 47.83% higher than that of the blank group. The addition of benzyl alcohol extended the peak time of hydrogen production in lignite fermentation. The peak hydrogen production time of 500 mg/L benzyl alcohol in the middle and late stage was 8 days, 5 days longer than that in the blank group. The peak hydrogen production of 500 mg/L benzyl alcohol in the middle and late stage was 0.11 mL/g, which was 2.75 times that of 0.04 mL/g in the blank group. Hydrogen production of lignite is mainly produced by acetic acid and propionic acid fermentation, which is different from butyric acid metabolic pathway of biomass microbial transformation such as crop straw and kitchen waste. This also provides a new way and theoretical basis for the fermentation of lignite to produce hydrogen.