Meet the Scholar
Tinku Casper D'Silva
2023 Commonwealth Split-site PhD Scholar
Lancaster University and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Mr. Tinku Casper D’ Silva is a Scientist B at KSCSTE-NATPAC, Kerala, specializing in environmental engineering, focusing on renewable energy, waste treatment, and sustainable technologies. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Renewable Energy at IIT Delhi, researching methane production via two-stage anaerobic digestion. A recipient of the Commonwealth Split-site Ph.D. Scholarship 2023-2024, he has authored 21 publications and presented at international conferences. Mr. D’ Silva has received several prestigious awards, including the Young Scientist Award and is an active member of professional organizations like IWA and AAEE.
About the Poster
Two-stage anaerobic digestion system for simultaneous biohydrogen and biomethane production
Anaerobic biotechnologies such as dark fermentation and anaerobic digestion (AD) have been globally recognized for producing the two cleanest gaseous fuels, hydrogen and methane, from waste biomass, supporting carbon neutrality. Integrating both technologies can simultaneously produce hydrogen and methane. With the booming global hydrogen market, two-stage AD could also be used as a "low carbon" hydrogen transport system. The hydrogen can be converted to methane through two-stage AD for transportation through gas grids and back to hydrogen through methane reforming for end-use. However, the research is still at an early stage, so this proposed study aims to optimize the two-stage AD suitable for the concept.
- Semi-continuous dark fermentation (DF) reactors were operated for biohydrogen production.
- Novel engineering strategy was applied to start-up the DF reactor.
- The DF effluent is a good source for biomethane production through anaerobic digestion (AD).
- Thus, two-stage anaerobic digestion (DF+AD) produce biohydrogen/biomethane simultaneously.
- This research supports the scale-up of technology and social readiness levels from scale 3 to 5.