A comprehensive and quantitative review of dark fermentative biohydrogen production

Abstract

Biohydrogen production (BHP) can be achieved by direct or indirect biophotolysis, photo-fermentation and dark fermentation, whereof only the latter does not require the input of light energy. Our motivation to compile this review was to quantify and comprehensively report strains and process performance of dark fermentative BHP. This review summarizes the work done on pure and defined co-culture dark fermentative BHP since the year 1901. Qualitative growth characteristics and quantitative normalized results of H2 production for more than 2000 conditions are presented in a normalized and therefore comparable format to the scientific community.Statistically based evidence shows that thermophilic strains comprise high substrate conversion efficiency, but mesophilic strains achieve high volumetric productivity. Moreover, microbes of Thermoanaerobacterales (Family III) have to be preferred when aiming to achieve high substrate conversion efficiency in comparison to the families Clostridiaceae and Enterobacteriaceae.The limited number of results available on dark fermentative BHP from fed-batch cultivations indicates the yet underestimated potential of this bioprocessing application. A Design of Experiments strategy should be preferred for efficient bioprocess development and optimization of BHP aiming at improving medium, cultivation conditions and revealing inhibitory effects. This will enable comparing and optimizing strains and processes independent of initial conditions and scale.

Improving biohydrogen production using Clostridium beijerinckii immobilized with magnetite nanoparticles

“…The hydrogen yields (Y H2/S ) obtained in the present study lie within the range of data reported in a review of dark fermentation published by Rittmann and Herwig (2012). However, the hydrogen productivity obtained for all three reactor sizes were relatively low (0.6 to 3.2 mmol/L/h) when compared to the range reported in the same review (2.09 to 27.1 mmol/L/h).…”

Expression of different types of [FeFe]-hydrogenase genes in bacteria isolated from a population of a bio-hydrogen pilot-scale plant

“…The involvement of Clostridium species in H2 production is well known and they are reported to be able to use several waste matrices [1,53]. Various strains of C. beijerinckii were isolated from several sources but, interestingly, the hydrogen production yield of the strain isolated here is higher than those previously reported [54][55][56].…”

Contemporary molecular tools in microbial ecology and their application to advancing biotechnology

“…There are numerous review articles describing the impact of genomics and metagenomics methods on microbial ecology (Xu 2006, Binga, Lasken et al 2008, Aziz, Breitbart et al 2010, Gilbert and Dupont 2011, Rittmann and Herwig 2012, Su, Lei et al 2012, Thompson, Field et al 2013, Reid 2014, Tseng and Tang 2014. There is also a plethora of papers that discuss the application of metagenomics in the field of biotechnology to discover novel enzymes, drug molecules, processes and applications (Lorenz, Liebeton et al 2002, Schloss and Handelsman 2003, Cowan, Meyer et al 2005 Eck Kennedy, Marchesi et al 2007, Brady, Simmons et al 2009, Steele, Jaeger et al 2009, Piel 2011, Iqbal, Feng et al 2012, de Castro, Sartori da Silva et al 2013, Hicks and Prather 2014.…”