Hydrogen Production by Immobilized Cells of Clostridium intestinale Strain URNW Using Alginate Beads.

Biological hydrogen (H2) is a promising candidate for production of renewable hydrogen. Using entrapped cells rather than conventional suspended cell cultures for the production of H2 offers several advantages, such as improved production yields related to higher cell density, and enhanced resistance to substrate and end-product inhibition. In this study, H2 production by a novel isolate of Clostridium intestinale (strain URNW) was evaluated using cells entrapped within 2% calcium-alginate beads under strictly anaerobic conditions. Both immobilized cells and suspended cultures were studied in sequential batch-mode anaerobic fermentation over 192 h. The production of H2 in the headspace was examined for four different initial cellobiose concentrations (5, 10, 20, and 40 mM). Although a lag period for initiation of the fermentation process was observed for bacteria entrapped within hydrogel beads, the immobilized cells achieved both higher volumetric production rates (mmol H2/(L culture h)) and molar yields (mol H2/mol glucose equivalent) of H2 compared with suspended cultures. In the current study, the maximum cellobiose consumption rate of 0.40 mM/h, corresponding to 133.3 mg/(L h), was achieved after 72 h of fermentation by immobilized cells, generating a high hydrogen yield of 3.57 mol H2/mol cellobiose, whereas suspended cultures only yielded 1.77 mol H2/mol cellobiose. The results suggest that cells remain viable within the hydrogels and proliferated with a slow rate over the course of fermentation. The stable productivity of immobilized cells over 8 days with four changes of medium depicted that the immobilized cells of the isolated strain can successfully yield higher hydrogen and lower soluble metabolites than suspended cells suggesting a feasible process for future applications for bioH2 production.