Synergistic Effect of Hydrothermal Pretreatment and Addition of Oyster Shell on Dark Fermentation of Food Waste and Kinetic Evaluation with Multiple Models.

Hydrogen (H₂) production, acidification performance, and kinetic modeling of dark fermentation (DF) of food waste (FW) with hydrothermal pretreatment (HTP) and addition of oyster shell (OS) were investigated in this study. A cumulative H₂ yield of 52.5 mL g VS⁻¹ with an improvement of 147.9% was obtained in the DF of FW with HTP and the addition of OS. Acidification performance analysis showed an upward trend of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from the start-up to day 3 or day 6, and then an opposite trend was observed for the remaining time of the DF process. Butyric and acetic fermentation dominated DF. Moreover, the DF process could be well fitted by the five kinetic models, and its quantitative rank was first-order > monomolecular > modified Gompertz > logistic > Fitzhugh. Correlation analysis indicated that the H₂ yield was affected by both pH and VFAs. This study demonstrated a novel strategy by combining HTP and OS addition for enhancing H₂ production from FW using DF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]