Hydrogen production by fermentation: Review of a new approach to environmentally safe energy production

Abstract

As a new clean energy source, the demands for and use of hydrogen fuel are rapidly increasing. Therefore, biohydrogen production technology is being developed to reduce operation costs in many countries. Improvement of biohydrogen production capacity and cost reduction are key factors to bring about industrial implementation. One of the most effective production methods is microbiological: the use of bacteria with high hydrogen-production capacity and performance. The anaerobic process of biohydrogen production was developed in the 1990s. The isolation and identification of highly efficient biohydrogen producing anaerobic bacteria is an important foundation for the fermentative production of hydrogen by anaerobic digestion of organic wastewater.

Continuous dark fermentative hydrogen production by mesophilic microflora: Principles and progress

“…In a review of their work, Ren et al [23] gave the optimal operating conditions for the ethanol/acetate hydrogen-producing fermentation of molasses as pH 4.0-4.5, HRT 4-6 h. Ren et al [62] reported continuous hydrogen production with ethanol and acetate production at pH around 4.5 from CSTR experiments with a mixed culture and molasses at 30 • C, whilst no gas was produced at pH 4.9. They claim propionic acid fermentation is dominant in the pH range 5-6.…”

“…Further work is thus needed to clarify the nature and usefulness of the relationship of B/A ratio to molar hydrogen yield. Although production of the reduced end product ethanol from hexose consumes NADH, Ren's group has shown that a fermentation producing ethanol and acetate from carbohydrate in a molar ratio close to 1 is favourable for hydrogen production [22,23]. The reactor, with flocculant sludge at pH 4.5 (approx.)…”

Effect of temperature and initial pH on biohydrogen production from palm oil mill effluent: long-term evaluation and microbial community analysis

“…The effect of pH is known to be crucial due to its effects on hydrogenase activity, metabolism pathways, and microbial communities . The microbial community is very important parameter for the success in biological hydrogen production process and is the key factor to bring sustainable biohydrogen production and industrial implementation (Iyer et al 2004;Ren et al 2006). This work focused on the statistical optimization of physico-chemical parameters (pH, temperature) in cultural conditions for biohydrogen production from palm oil mill effluent (POME) in batch and continuous reactor, their interaction on hydrogen production, long-term evaluation of optimization condition and investigated the responsible microbial community using PCR-DGGE technique.…”

Integrated Approach for Development of Environmental Biotechnologies for Treatment of Solid Organic Waste and Obtaining of Biohydrogen and Lignocellulosic Substrate

“…In these reactions, organic compounds of food waste are electron donors, and О 2 , NO 3 -, SO 4 2-, H + , and CO 2 are acceptors. Microorganisms act as a biocatalyst in the donor-acceptor reaction (Noike and Mizuno, 2000;Hawkes et al, 2002;Kapdan and Kargi, 2006;Ren et al, 2006). The rate and efficiency of microbial degradation of organic compounds in general and food waste in particular are determined by the release of free energy ΔG in the coupled donor-acceptor reaction (Finley et al, 2009;Bethke et al, 2011).…”