Fermentative hydrogen production from agroindustrial lignocellulosic substrates

Abstract

To achieve economically competitive biological hydrogen production, it is crucial to consider inexpensive materials such as lignocellulosic substrate residues derived from agroindustrial activities. It is possible to use (1) lignocellulosic materials without any type of pretreatment, (2) lignocellulosic materials after a pretreatment step, and (3) lignocellulosic materials hydrolysates originating from a pretreatment step followed by enzymatic hydrolysis. According to the current literature data on fermentative H2 production presented in this review, thermophilic conditions produce H2 in yields approximately 75% higher than those obtained in mesophilic conditions using untreated lignocellulosic substrates. The average H2 production from pretreated material is 3.17 ± 1.79 mmol of H2/g of substrate, which is approximately 50% higher compared with the average yield achieved using untreated materials (2.17 ± 1.84 mmol of H2/g of substrate). Biological pretreatment affords the highest average yield 4.54 ± 1.78 mmol of H2/g of substrate compared with the acid and basic pretreatment - average yields of 2.94 ± 1.85 and 2.41 ± 1.52 mmol of H2/g of substrate, respectively. The average H2 yield from hydrolysates, obtained from a pretreatment step and enzymatic hydrolysis (3.78 ± 1.92 mmol of H2/g), was lower compared with the yield of substrates pretreated by biological methods only, demonstrating that it is important to avoid the formation of inhibitors generated by chemical pretreatments. Based on this review, exploring other microorganisms and optimizing the pretreatment and hydrolysis conditions can make the use of lignocellulosic substrates a sustainable way to produce H2.

Transformation of Lignocellulosic Biomass into Sustainable Biofuels: Major Challenges and Bioprocessing Technologies

“…The pretreated saccharified lignocellulosic biomass is followed by microbial fermentation with various bioethanol-producing microorganisms. Furthermore, many studies showed pretreated biomass produced a higher yield of biohydrogen than untreated biomass and it was also observed that the biologically treated biomass produced a higher amount of biohydrogen (Reginatto and Antônio, 2015).…”

History of adaptation determines short‐term shifts in performance and community structure of hydrogen‐producing microbial communities degrading wheat straw

“…There have been several reports on the performance of microbial consortia for hydrogen production from lignocellulosic biomasses. Typical microbial communities tested for this purpose include sludge from anaerobic digesters, composts and ruminal fluids (Chu et al ., ; Pérez‐Rangel et al ., ; Reginatto and Antônio, ). In addition, recent studies have highlighted the suitability of using microbial communities to produce liquid biofuels (Ho et al ., ; Ronan et al ., ).…”

Biohydrogen production by locally isolated facultative bacterial species using the biomass of Eichhornia crassipes: effect of acid and alkali treatment

“…Bacteria belonging to varied groups can perform fermentative H 2 production (Reginatto and Antônio 2015). Strict anaerobe Clostridium and facultative anaerobes of the family Enterobacteriaceae are the well-established H 2 -producing strains (Seol et al 2008;Elsharnouby et al 2013;Reginatto and Antônio 2015).…”