Biohydrogen production via green silver nanoparticles synthesized through biomass of Ulva lactuca bloom

Abstract

Ulva lactuca is a marine green seaweed. Its bloom based biomass accumulated in the İzmir bay and is collected by local authorities. In this investigation, an alternative solution was proposed to utilize the biomass of U. lactuca to produce biohydrogen via green synthesized silver nanoparticles. According to the results, the optimum conditions related to silver nanoparticle production such as pH, temperature, biomass concentration, silver nitrate concentrations, and incubation time were determined to be 11, 25 °C, 10 mg/mL, 4 mM, and 3 days, respectively. Effective conditions for biohydrogen production such as pH, temperature, agitation rate, and sodium borohydride concentration were found to be 7, 50 °C, 250 rpm and 150 mM, respectively. These parameters are also modelled with an artificial neural network. The data presented here provide recommendations for producing biohydrogen from waste algae and helping reduce carbon emissions for better environment and future.