Comparison of different pre-treatment methods for enriching hydrogen-producing bacteria from intertidal sludge

ABSTRACT

Batch tests of cultivations were conducted to analyze influences of pre-treatment methods (heat–shock, acid, and alkaline) on hydrogen production. The hydrogen yields of the pre-treated samples were significantly higher than those without pre-treatment. Heat–shock pre-treatment yielded maximum hydrogen (75.5 ± 4.0 mL/g sucrose_removed), and had the highest sucrose removal efficiency (81.20 ± 1.23%). Heat–shock pre-treatment produced more ethanol and acetate (80.44 ± 0.55% of the total soluble metabolites), which belonged to ethanol-type fermentation. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) profiles showed that pre-treatment methods affected the composition of microbial communities. The results showed that pre-treatment methods play a key role in the hydrogen production process of marine hydrogen-producing microflora.

KEYWORDS:

• Biological hydrogen production
• fermentation
• PCR-DGGE
• pre-treatment
• seawater

Funding

This work was support by the Key Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin of China (14JCZDJC40200) and the Science Foundation of Tianjin University of Science & Technology (20130114).

Additional information

Funding

This work was support by the Key Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin of China (14JCZDJC40200) and the Science Foundation of Tianjin University of Science & Technology (20130114).