Treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) via fermentation under controlled conditions can produce a high‐value biohydrogen (H₂) mixture containing carbon dioxide (CO₂). This H₂ can be enriched before it can be used for renewable energy, that is, in fuel cell. In this work, H₂ was upgraded via two techniques, namely absorption column and membrane contactor system. Ammonium hydroxide (NH₄OH), potassium hydroxide (KOH), and mixed solution of NH₄OH and KOH were used as the chemical absorbents for both techniques. In the absorption column, it was found that the mixed solution provided the highest H₂ purity (99%) at 1 M concentration with a gas flow rate of 0.2 L/min. Meanwhile, the mixed solution and KOH solution showed similar separation performance with H₂ purity of up to 75% in the gas–liquid membrane contactor. On investigating the separation performance for each of the compared techniques, it was found that the absorption column has a superior ability to purify H₂ than the membrane contactor system. However, the membrane contactor is more sustainable as it has the least drop in H₂ purity at a longer separation time during the separation process. Both techniques have their own advantages in purifying H₂, and thus they can be fairly considered for gas upgrading.

中文翻译：

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棕榈油厂废水发酵提纯的生物氢吸收塔与膜接触器系统分离性能的比较。

通过在受控条件下进行发酵来处理棕榈油厂废水（POME），可以产生含有二氧化碳（CO ₂）的高价值生物氢（H ₂）混合物。该H ₂在可用于可再生能源之前，即在燃料电池中，可以先富集。在这项工作中，H ₂通过吸收塔和膜接触器系统这两种技术进行了升级。两种技术均使用氢氧化铵（NH ₄ OH），氢氧化钾（KOH）以及NH ₄ OH和KOH的混合溶液作为化学吸收剂。在吸收塔中，发现混合溶液提供了最高的H _2。浓度（1 M浓度）的纯净度（99％），气体流速为0.2 L / min。同时，混合溶液和KOH溶液在气液膜接触器中显示出相似的分离性能，H ₂纯度高达75％。在研究每种比较技术的分离性能时，发现吸收塔比膜接触器系统具有更高的H ₂净化能力。但是，由于在分离过程中较长的分离时间，H ₂纯度下降最少，因此膜接触器更具可持续性。两种技术在纯化H ₂方面都有各自的优势，因此可以合理地考虑将其用于天然气提质。