Abstract

FERNANDEZ RODRIGUEZ, Camino; MARTINEZ TORRES, Elia Judith; MORAN PALAO, Antonio  and  GOMEZ BARRIOS, Xiomar. Biological treatments of cheese whey for biogas and hydrogen production. Review. Rev. ion [online]. 2016, vol.29, n.1, pp.47-62. ISSN 0120-100X.  https://doi.org/10.18273/revion.v29n1-2016004.

Dairy industry is characterized by high generation of cheese whey, a byproduct from cheese factories with a high organic matter content in the form of lactose, proteins and other compounds coming from processed milk. If it is not properly disposed it might favour serious environmental pollution problems. However, it is possible the application of recovery technologies in order to obtain its main compounds for further applications such as food or pharmaceutical industry, and for obtaining biofuels. Nowadays, biofuels are an important source of renewable energy as potential future alternative for fossil fuels. For this reason, energetic valorisation of cheese whey has become an interensting alternative. Anaerobic digestion is considered one of the most used technologies in wastewater and solid waste treatments. Several studies have been conducted with cheese whey as a suitable substrate with a considerable biogas potential production. However, it presents some disadvantages due to the rapid acidification tendency and nutrient content limitations that might favor failures in the process. For this reason, alternatives like anaerobic co-digestion with other substrates or dark fermentation for hydrogen production have been proposed. This paper intends to review the main works developed applying the mentioned technologies along with its most relevant results considering operation conditions influence and the environmental factors affecting production.

Keywords : cheese whey; biogas; hydrogen; fermentation.

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