Kinetics of two-stage fermentation process for the production of hydrogen

Abstract

Two-stage process described in the present work is a combination of dark and photofermentation in a sequential batch mode. In the first stage glucose is fermented to acetate, CO2 and H2 in an anaerobic dark fermentation by Enterobacter cloacae DM11. This is followed by a successive second stage where acetate is converted to H2 and CO2 in a photobioreactor by photosynthetic bacteria, Rhodobacter sphaeroides O.U. 001. The yield of hydrogen in the first stage was about 3.31molH2(molglucose)-1 (approximately 82% of theoretical) and that in the second stage was about 1.5–1.72molH2(molaceticacid)-1 (approximately 37–43% of theoretical). The overall yield of hydrogen in two-stage process considering glucose as preliminary substrate was found to be higher compared to a single stage process. Monod model, with incorporation of substrate inhibition term, has been used to determine the growth kinetic parameters for the first stage. The values of maximum specific growth rate (μmax) and Ks (saturation constant) were 0.398h-1 and 5.509gl-1, respectively, using glucose as substrate. The experimental substrate and biomass concentration profiles have good resemblance with those obtained by kinetic model predictions. A model based on logistic equation has been developed to describe the growth of R. sphaeroides O.U 001 in the second stage. Modified Gompertz equation was applied to estimate the hydrogen production potential, rate and lag phase time in a batch process for various initial concentration of glucose, based on the cumulative hydrogen production curves. Both the curve fitting and statistical analysis showed that the equation was suitable to describe the progress of cumulative hydrogen production.