Scientists have known for decades that certain kinds of bacteria, when fed a sugary base, produce hydrogen. The challenge is to stop the bacteria from converting the hydrogen to methane, and NanoLogix Inc.'s patented renewable hydrogen production method does that, said William Hartman, the company's chief operating officer and senior vice president.

NanoLogix, which is based in Hubbard, Ohio, east of Youngstown and near the Pennsylvania border, operates a small hydrogen bioreactor at a Welch's grape juice plant in the town of North East, Pa., near Erie. The reactor uses washings from the grape juice, and ``nontoxic, completely harmless bacteria'' eat the hydrocarbons in the waste and exhale hydrogen gas, Hartman said.

The juice plant generates about 400,000 gallons of waste a day, but it sometimes is not usable for the bioreactor because the pH is off, Hartman said. ``During periods of high maintenance at the plant, when they're using a lot of bleach and soap, the pH is wrong and our equipment shuts down,'' he said.

When the liquid is right, the bioreactor is able to extract hydrogen. The hydrogen can be compressed and stored, leaving only carbon dioxide as the byproduct, and that can be bottled and sold for commercial use, he said. The process takes about six hours.

``Welch's has come back to us; they're pleased with what we're doing. They see the advantage of a `green' image, and we want to go forward with production,'' Hartman said.

Plant engineer Paul Zorzie said NanoLogix's system is not yet replacing any energy used during juice production, but Welch's is happy to support the research and try to turn its waste stream into something usable.

Hartman said NanoLogix is designing a larger system that can produce larger quantities of hydrogen, and Welch's is taking steps to ensure a better waste stream - one richer in sugar and more predictable in pH.

``What we do at that point, presuming our R&D bears fruit, is use hydrogen to power a generator that would feed back electricity to the grid and feed the (juice) plant,'' he said.

The key to the bioreactor is controlling the environment, especially temperature and aeration, so that it is conducive to the right kind of bacteria growth - the kind that prevents the continued breakdown of the waste to methane, Hartman said.

``Hydrogen has some 2.4 times the energy of methane, which is why we want it. It's worth much more. And when we have converted our generators to run on hydrogen and those generators are running in a two-car enclosed garage at our office, everybody is fine because the only thing coming out of the exhaust pipe is water, and it was vaporized,'' Hartman said.

Professor Harry ``Rick'' Diz, chairman of the environmental science and engineering programs at Gannon University in Erie, Pa., is working with NanoLogix to scale up the Welch's operation and, on a related front, use sludge from Erie's municipal wastewater treatment plants to generate hydrogen.

The hydrogen-from-sludge system, which NanoLogix hopes to install in Erie sometime in 2008, has a lot in common with anaerobic digesters used at wastewater treatment plants, Diz said.

``Within the hydrogen and biohydrogen production community, it's called a dark fermentation process,'' he said. ``What we've done, though some of the particulars are sort of special, is essentially applied the anaerobic digester process to produce hydrogen. It includes a sequence of chemical reactions that various microbes do for us.

``We're able to sustain hydrogen production without losing the hydrogen to conversion to methane,'' Diz said. ``When we do see methane start to appear in the biogas, we have a couple of control techniques we can apply to get rid of those organisms.

``Our approach to wastewater treatment sludge is very similar to that in Europe, where the trade name there is Hyvolution.''

Protein-rich sludge waste requires several steps to convert to hydrogen, not just a single one, and it needs a specific organism, photobacteria, he said. ``It's a very different problem than the sugar-based waste because activated sludge is microbial biomass with no sugar, and the biochemistry of producing hydrogen from that is different. We're in the lab exploring this.''

At the Welch's plant, Diz said he is fairly confident that the system can work with other sugary feedstock, like that found at food processing plants, and that it can be done without multiple, costly steps.

``The guiding principle is that you can't spend a lot of money on energy if we're trying to produce energy. The idea of lots of complicated steps, heating liquids to high temperatures and using multiple phases is not the way to go,'' Diz said.

Hartman said the bacteria used in the bioreactor at the juice plant are commonly available and low-cost, and the process does not require constant recharging with new microbes. ``We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We're able to discharge the substrate without discharging the bacteria.''

Diz said it's not a matter of picking the right ``bug'' to begin the process, but more a matter of pumping the waste juice or water into the bioreactor and letting the microbes that have taken up residence in the tank - using a culture known to produce hydrogen - do their work.

NanoLogix hopes to install a larger bioreactor at Welch's and ramp up to commercial reactors later in 2008. These reactors would have a 1,000-gallon container and be contained, along with supporting equipment such as a water heater and compressor, in a fully portable truck trailer.

``All we would have to do is drop some PVC pipe to the (waste) sources, and perhaps an electrical drop for the pump, and we're in business,'' said Hartman, who envisions small hydrogen bioreactors scattered throughout the world, especially in developing countries where energy demands are growing exponentially.

``Rather than creating one large central source and transporting it, with the use of our system you can have small hydrogen plants wherever they're needed,'' he said, adding that the hydrogen is simply stored in cylinders.

If NanoLogix's research and development on its patented and patent-pending processes can be commercialized, Hartman said it would not involve an overhaul of our internal-combustion-engine society.

``I spent 40 years in the auto industry, as a chief engineer at TRW and 20 years at Ford engine engineering,'' he said. ``The auto industry has invested untold billions in the internal combustion engine. To convert to another method would be wasteful, but with hydrogen, the mechanics are basically the same. We control the chemistry and timing with a spark, and it's actually simpler to take hydrogen in. You end up with an engine that's more efficient, produces more power and completely eliminates all harmful emissions.''

For more information, contact NanoLogix at (330) 534-0800, or visit NanoLogixInc.com.

Hayhurst is a correspondent for Waste News. Send feedback about this article to editorial@wastenews.com