Dark fermentation of hydrogen from waste glycerol using hyperthermophilic eubacterium Thermotoga neapolitana

Abstract

Waste glycerol from bio‐diesel manufacturing is currently held to be a new, attractive, and abundant resource for future bio‐fuel. Bio‐hydrogen production via the fermentation route was examined for the first time from pure glycerol and discharged waste glycerol as the sole substrate by the hyperthermophilic eubacterium Thermotoga neapolitana. The bacterium, directly fermenting pure glycerol and crude waste glycerol in the medium, showed respective retarded growth and low H2 production 447 ± 22 mL H2 L−1 and 437 ± 21 mL H2 L−1. Attempting to improve the growth and H2 production, small amount (1.5 g L−1) of itaconic acid was added into the culture medium. In this case, H2 production from fermentation was approximately 620 ± 30 mL H2 L−1 for both pure glycerol and pre‐treated waste glycerol as main substrate, an increase of 36.6% compared with cultures grown without itaconic acid, respectively. Further optimization of the glycerol concentration and culture conditions revealed enhancements in growth, H2 production, and glycerol utilization. The H2 fermentation from waste glycerol is of potential importance as wastes from bio‐diesel processes can be utilized to produce bio‐hydrogen. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2011

Hydrogen production from glycerol by Escherichia coli and other bacteria: An overview and perspectives

“…Interestingly, H 2 production from pre-treated glycerol was higher than that from untreated one [103]; pure glycerol was effective [106]. Again, H 2 production decrease was with an increase in glycerol concentration [107].…”

“…Besides, different groups [105][106][107] have reported H 2 production from glycerol in batch and continuous cultures of hyperthermophilic bacteria Thermotoga neapolitana and T. maritima (>75°C). Interestingly, H 2 production from pre-treated glycerol was higher than that from untreated one [103]; pure glycerol was effective [106].…”

Process enhancement of hydrogen and methane production from palm oil mill effluent using two-stage thermophilic and mesophilic fermentation

“…While, CSTR runs at a steady state with a continuous flow of reactants and products. It has good temperature control, continuous operation and high methane recovery [11]. However, hydrogen and methane yield is mainly affected by the environmental factors such as HRT, pH, and temperature.…”

Enhancing biological hydrogen production through complementary microbial metabolisms

“…In exceptional cases, higher H 2 yields in the range of 3.0e3.4 mol/mol of these substrates were reported [6,58,61,64,67]. Although many sugars and alcohols have been tried as feed for producing H 2 , the yields were quite low (Table 1) [46,53,67,73,79,80]. However, there have been reports of H 2 yields in the range of 2.20e2.62 with galactose, mannose and mannitol as feed [56,73,81].…”

“…Another emerging field is the biodiesel, where high chemical oxygen demand containing wastes are generated in large quantities. These have also been demonstrated to have the potential to act as feed for H 2 production [80,104,105].…”