Poster Presentation 2-07
Hydrogen Production by Co-cultures
of Facultative Anaerobes and Photosynthetic Bacteria
Masaru Tokumoto,1 Yasuyuki Aihara,1 Masayo Oku,1 Hideki Kohno,1
Katsuhiro Ishimi,2 Yutaka Nakashimada,３ Naomichi Niashio,３ Jun Miyake,４ Tatsuki Wakayama,４ Masamitsu
Tomiyama,５ Takaaki Fujii６ and Yasuo Asada2*
1Department of Applied Molecular Chemistry
2Department
of General Education,
Narashinodai
Phone/Fax: +81-47-469-5306
E-mail: asada@chem.ge.cst.nihon-u.ac.jp
3Department
of Molecular Biotechnology
４Tissue Engineering Center, AIST
5Genetic
Diversity Department
National Institute of Agrobiological
Science.
6Department
of Bioresources
We aim to convert glucose, the basic substance
of biomass, to hydrogen gas by co-cultures of facultative anaerobes and photosynthetic
bacteria. First, Enterobacter aerogenes HU-101 was chosen for its rapid hydrogen
production from glucose with byproducts of organic acids and alcohols, some of
which could be further converted to hydrogen by a photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides
RV. Strains HU-101 and RV were
co-immobilized in an agar gel, which was pre-cultured by being dipped in
culture media. After the pre-culture,
the illuminated co-culture gel converted glucose to hydrogen gas with the yield
of 3.15 moles of hydrogen per glucose. The reason for the low yield was estimated to be
production of alcohols by HU-101 which were not converted
to hydrogen by RV. We are further
studying to improve the yield by changing the anaerobe to lactic fermenter or by the use of alcohol-utilizing Rhodopseudomonas sp. No.7. A change to Lactobacillus may be a
significant improvement over the above system.
This research is a part of results from the Microbial/Biochemical-Fuel Cell Project
(2002-2006FY) sponsored by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery,
Japan.