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Dark fermentation from biomass can produce bio-hydrogen, which is a clean energy source and feedstock used in numerous industries. However, the hydrogen fermentation process produces strong waste fermenting liquor that requires polishing before disposal. This work utilized the waste fermenting liquors to produce bioflocculant from the residual organic matters. Three bacterial strains were noted to have high potential to produce bioflocculants from waste fermenting liquor. In particular, the strain BF-6, identified as Bacillus subtilis by 16S rRNA sequencing, was noted to effectively produce bioflocculant from ethanol-rich mixtures. The BF-6 produced carbohydrate bioflocculants from waste fermenting liquors at a yield of 2.1 g l −1 .

Producing electricity from a renewable source is a major challenge in Morocco nowadays and high concentrated photovoltaic (HCPV) is becoming an attractive solution to ensure clean energy generation due to its high efficiency. The aim of this paper is to estimate the « Energetic, economic, and environmental » performances of large scale HCPV power plants in the major Moroccan climatic zones and to compare their feasibility to PV plants. The mathematical model for estimating the energetic, economic, and environmental performances of large scale HCPV plants is shown, sensitivity and comparison analysis are exhibited. Another goal of the paper is the optimization of the performances of the algorithm through the study of the effect of different parameters. Our major finding is that the large scale HCPV plants are more competitive than PV plants in Errachidia climatic zone where the (capacity factor, LCOE) take the values (26.07%,8.57c$/kWh). Moreover, the capacity factor of large scale HCPV power plants is the most sensitive to the temperature coefficient while the (LCOEnominal, LCOEreal, NPV) are the most sensitive to the analysis period. The quantity of CO2 mitigated reaches a maximal value in the Errachidia zone with 2.59 × 105 tons of carbon per year avoided, and the cost of carbon gained there is estimated to be 10.4 M$. Innovative GIS maps of energetic, economic, and environmental performances of large scale HCPV power plants for all Morocco are given.

Hydrogen is widely used in many industries, yet its role in the clean energy transition goes beyond being an element of these industries. Near-term practical large-scale clean hydrogen production can be made available by involving nuclear, solar, and other renewable energy sources in the process of hydrogen production, and coupling their energy systems to sustainable carbon-free hydrogen technologies. This requires further investigation and assessment of the different alternatives to achieve clean hydrogen using these pathways. This paper assesses the technoeconomics of promising hydrogen technologies that can be coupled to nuclear and solar energy systems for large-scale hydrogen production. It also provides an overview of the design, status and advances of these technologies.

This paper presents an overview on solar-thermal decomposition of fossil fuels as a viable option for transition path from today's permanent dependency on fossil fuels to tomorrow's solar fuels via solar thermochemical technology. The paper focuses on the thermochemical hydrogen generation technologies from concentrated solar energy and gives an assessment of the recent advancements in the hydrogen producing solar reactors. The advantages and obstacles of hydrogen generation via solar cracking and solar reforming are presented along with some discussions on the feasibility of industrial scaling of these technologies. Solar cracking and solar reforming processes are discussed as promising hybrid solar/fossil technologies to take considerable share during transition from fossil fuel dependency to clean energy based sustainability.

Access to clean energy is vital to combat global warming and climate change, and nothing but hydrogen could better deliver it with ease to secure future energy needs. Biohydrogen could be produced in different routes including photolysis, water-gas shift reaction, dark, photo-fermentation and combination of both. Dark fermentative hydrogen production (DFHP) is efficient in comparison with photo-fermentation and utilizing organic waste ensures land usage and water for agriculture. Several microbes are involved in the process of biohydrogen production via dark fermentation and characterizing them at molecular level unveils holistic approach and understanding. Limited resources were available in terms of molecular tools for microbial characterization and this paper attempts to review the evolution of advanced molecular techniques including their merits and demerits. Understanding the composition of micro-flora is important in DFHP and could be classified as pure, co-cultures, enriched mixed cultures and mixed microbiota. These cultures act as seed sources for batch and continuous fermentations that help in understanding the efficiency of these methods. The schematics and systematic assessment of the various molecular tools (cloning, PCR-DGGE, FISH, NGS, CE-SSCP) for quantification, identification, detection and characterization of the microbial cell activity have been elaborated. Lastly, a comparative tabulation recapitulates the merits and drawbacks of each technique discussed. This provides valued information for choosing the right kind of microbial and molecular assessment tool for future characterization. Such analysis aids in suitable identification and characterization of microflora as potential biocatalysts for biohydrogen production through dark fermentation.

Chemical looping is a novel process in clean energy conversion with inherent CO2 sequestration. For successfully operating the chemical looping, the cyclic material must meet a variety of criteria, such as high dispersion of the cyclic phase on the support, large external surface area, and small crystallite size, etc. in attempt to better activity and stability. In this paper, we applied a colloidal crystal templated sol–gel synthesis route to produce materials for chemical looping with hydrogen storage. To understand the role of template in the sol–gel process, two samples prepared with or without template were investigated by various characterization techniques. The results showed the template could not only promote the homogeneity of the metallic precursors, but also efficiently control the material morphology. The resulting high dispersion and confinement effects endowed this material better activity and stability in chemical looping multicycles. Our current experiments demonstrated this strategy can be used as a platform for convenient incorporation of a variety of structural features, and we anticipated it can be extended to synthesis more chemical looping materials.

This paper discusses new hydrogen production methods that have been actively investigated both theoretically and experimentally at UOIT and some recent findings through experimental measurements and analysis. A major cluster of activities at UOIT has developed novel hydrogen production systems from electrolysis to thermochemical cycles and from integrated cycles to solar-light based hydrogen production processes. The results confirm that both thermochemical cycles and photochemical processes offer promising potential for sustainable hydrogen production.

Hydrogen sensors are increasingly recognized as safety enhancing components in applications where hydrogen is exploited as a clean energy carrier. The availability of low cost, reliable, high performance hydrogen sensors is critical for facilitating the widespread and safe deployment of hydrogen systems. Accordingly, new sensing element designs based on advanced manufacturing techniques are being developed. Using micro-machining techniques, miniaturized versions of conventional hydrogen gas sensing elements have already been introduced in the market, with the promise of lowcost and high performance sensing metrics. An assessment of commercial micromachined sensing elements relative to their conventional counterpart is presented in this paper. The results show that although some performance improvements were observed for commercial micro-machined sensors relative to their conventional counterparts, many micro-machined sensors were plagued with significant degradations. Furthermore, actual sensor performance, as determined by laboratory assessment often did not meet the manufacturer’s published specifications. This work verifies the sensing metrics improvements brought by the micro-technology as well as its shortcomings for guiding the end-user safety applications., JRC.F.2-Cleaner energy