Recent trends on the development of photobiological processes and photobioreactors for the improvement of hydrogen production

Dasgupta, Chitralekha Nag; Gilbert, J. Jose; Lindblad, Peter; Heidorn, Thorsten; Borgvang, S.; Skjånes, Kari; Das, Debabrata

doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2010.06.029

Cited by 254 publications

(102 citation statements)

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“…The potential of exploiting these processes in various combinations have been reviewed to some extent [7][8][9][10]. However a large number of hurdles still seem to persist such as: (i) in the dark-fermentative process-(a) relatively lower H 2 yield (b) the need for strict anaerobic conditions for high H 2 producers, and (c) thermodynamic instability of the process at higher H 2 concentrations, and (ii) during the photo-fermentative process-(a) sensitivity of the H 2 production process to nitrogen content of the feed (b) effect to light intensity and duration of radiation under outdoor (sunlight) and indoor (artificial light sources) conditions, and (c) types of bioreactors required for H 2 production [2,[11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrative Biological Hydrogen Production: An Overview

Patel

Kalia

2012

Indian J Microbiol

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Biological hydrogen (H 2 ) production by dark and photo-fermentative organisms is a promising area of research for generating bioenergy. A large number of organisms have been widely studied for producing H 2 from diverse feeds, both as pure and as mixed cultures. However, their H 2 producing efficiencies have been found to vary (from 3 to 8 mol/mol hexose) with physiological conditions, type of organisms and composition of feed (starchy waste from sweet potato, wheat, cassava and algal biomass). The present review deals with the possibilities of enhancing H 2 production by integrating metabolic pathways of different organisms-dark fermentative bacteria (from cattle dung, activated sludge, Caldicellulosiruptor, Clostridium, Enterobacter, Lactobacillus, and Vibrio) and photo-fermentative bacteria (such as Rhodobacter, Rhodobium and Rhodopseudomonas). The emphasis has been laid on systems which are driven by undefined dark-fermentative cultures in combination with pure photo-fermentative bacterial cultures using biowaste as feed. Such an integrative approach may prove suitable for commercial applications on a large scale.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrative Biological Hydrogen Production: An Overview

Patel

Kalia

2012

Indian J Microbiol

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“…H 2 may also be produced from sun without photovoltaic and subsequent water electrolysis: the solarthermal metal-oxide cycle [72,73,74] reach up to 20% efficiency for water splitting and may also be combined with electrolysis [75,76]. Direct biophotolysis is attractive since it allows the releases of H 2 from o-PS mediated water splitting, induced for example by sulphur starvation, knockout of CBB or a lack of CO 2 [77,78,79,80]. Eventual inactivation of PS-II and low cell viability are of lesser importance, since microalgae may be simply harvested as SCP.…”

Section: Two-stage Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture-independent, sustainable, fail-safe and efficient food production by autotrophic single-cell protein

Bogdahn¹

2015

Preprint

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Food production with plants consumes large amounts of water, occupies large areas of land and cannot guarantee food security beyond the 21st century. Industrial agriculture in particular, is destructive to the environment, fosters climate change in profound ways, deteriorates public health and causes high "hidden costs". Single-cell protein (SCP) represents an alternative with minimal carbon-, water-and land footprints. However, when grown on biowastes of industrial agriculture, heterotrophic SCP does not truly improve sustainability or food security.This hypothesis paper proposes autotrophic SCP bioprocess designs which enable sustainable, fail-safe and efficient production of edible biomass from CO 2 and N 2 or NH 3 . They can be driven by H 2 , CO or HCOOH from several sustainable sources. Besides H 2 O-electrolysis and syngas, surprisingly fossil fuels may provide an effectively carbon-negative and cheap supply of H 2 through the decomposition of CH 4 or oil. Most promising bioprocess designs consist of 2-stages. In the 1 st stage, homoacetogenic bacteria fix CO 2 up to 10 more efficiently than plants, and secrete it as acetate. In the 2 nd stage, selected microbes grow on the acetate and thereby form edible biomass. Bacteria have unique features including N 2 -fixation, H 2 S tolerance and O 2 -tolerant hydrogenases for fast lightindependent growth. Eukaryotic microalgae are already approved as food and exhibit oxygenic photosynthesis which partly replaces solar-panels, seawater desalination and H 2 O-electrolyzers. Photoheterotrophic growth on acetate decouples these benefits from inefficient endogenous CO 2 fixation. Slow gas mass-transfer, poor light distribution and expensive cell harvest are major challenges arising from the cultivation in liquid media. To cope with this, microbes grow as hydrated biofilms that are exposed directly to substrate gases, and that can be dry-harvested. Two suitable bioreactors are presented and adaptations for 2-stage designs are proposed. Since provision with substrates is expensive, two strategies are proposed for the safe extraction of substrates from food-grade as well as non-food-grade biowastes via partial anaerobic digestion. Additionally, alkalic pH and hydroxides formed at the cathode during electrolysis may be used to precipitate CO 2 from the air as carbonates. In two use cases, 2-stage designs with solar-powered H 2 -generation from seawater were estimated to exceed productivity of wheat 20-200 fold, for moderate and arid climates respectively. Preliminary cost estimates and data about direct and indirect subsidies of industrial agriculture lead to the hypothesis that autotrophic SCP likely outperforms industrial agriculture not only in ecological but also in economical aspects.

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“…Also, control of parameters like temperature, nutrients and pH is poor in such systems. On the other hand, closed systems allow better control of these parameters and result in higher biomass production and biohydrogen production [29].…”

Section: Photobioreactorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are generally classified according to their: (i) Design -flat or tubular, horizontal, inclined, vertical or spiral and manifold or serpentine [30] (ii) Mode of operation batch, fed-batch and continuous [29]. In order to achieve sustainable photofermentative hydrogen production in outdoor conditions, the development of an optimized photobioreactor system that has the following properties is targeted: (i) a simply designed enclosed system that is impermeable to hydrogen (ii) a transparent system that allows maximum light penetration, preferably at high visible light or near red-infrared transmissions (iii) a system with high surface-tovolume ratio for better/wide distribution of light (iv) a system made from an unreactive material that is durable, easy to clean and sterilize [29,[31][32][33]. Flat plate and tubular types of PBRs are commonly used in photofermentative hydrogen production ( Figure 3).…”

Section: Photobioreactorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These conventional panel PBRs are considered as the first generation plate-type bioreactors. The second generation is a flat panel airlift PBR made up of two deep-drawn plates glued together while the third generation comprises deep-drawn plates fused together under pressure and heat [29]. Panel PBRs have a short light path and facilitate the measurement of irradiance at the culture surface [28,3,34].…”

Section: Photobioreactorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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