Comparative analysis of thermophilic immobilized biohydrogen production using packed materials of ceramic ring and pumice stone

WOS: 000296991800015Ceramic ring and pumice stone were used as a support matrix for the enhancement of biohydrogen production in immobilized cell culture systems. The reactors were continuously operated for the hydrogen fermentation using sucrose as the major carbon source at varying hydraulic retention times (HRT) as an important operational factor. In terms of volumetric hydrogen production, the best value was obtained with ceramic ring at 1.5 h HRT (2.98 l H-2/l/d), on the other hand, the pumice stone packed reactor resulted in 30% less volumetric hydrogen production (2.28 l H-2/l/d) at two fold longer retention time (HRT 3 h). It was demonstrated that volumetric hydrogen production with the immobilized bioreactor configurations was 6 fold better than the suspended culture bioreactor configuration (CSTR). Furthermore, up to 4 mol and 5 mol hydrogen yields per mole of sucrose used (which are 62.5% and 50% of the theoretical values) were achieved by pumice stone and ceramic ring packed reactors, respectively, whereas suspended culture system yielded only 0.5 mol H-2/mol sucrose. Copyright (C) 2011, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.TUBITAK-CAYDAGTurkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) [109Y004]The authors wish to thank TUBITAK-CAYDAG for the financial support of this study under the grant no. 109Y004. The data presented in this article was produced within the project above, however it is only the authors of this article who are responsible for the results and discussions made herein