Biological hydrogen production: effects of inoculation and production media

Abstract

In this work inoculation media are selected as potato, glycerine and milk to investigate the best storage condition that is important to maintain microorganism activity and stable hydrogen production performance. Cheese whey, potato and enriched potato (with additional glucose and CaCO3) are used as the production media and their hydrogen production results are compared in order to determine the best biohydrogen production media. Batch growth of anaerobic Clostridium butyricum for biohydrogen production is performed in 500 ml screw-capped bottles at 28°C. It is noted that both the inoculation and the production media are highly effective on hydrogen production. Results show that the highest hydrogen production yield is obtained as 50.50 ml H2/g COD using milk as inoculation medium and enriched potato as production medium. Another important production factor is the production rate and when the results of three different inoculation media are compared for different production media, milk inoculation and enriched potato production media give the highest results as 41.9291 mL/L.h.