Photoproduction of hydrogen from raw starch using a halophilic bacterial community
J. Biosci. Bioeng., 88 (1):
72--77 (1999)Zusammenfassung
The bacterial community
designated BC1, which originates from night soil treatment sludge,
exhibited a strong ability to produce H-2 from raw starch in the light in
the presence of 3% NaCl. Three halophilic or halotolerant bacterial
species, Vibrio fluvialis, Rhodobium marinum, and Proteus vulgaris,
were isolated from BC1 and identified. The level of H-2 production
from starch by coculture of V. fluvialis and R. marinum was nearly
equal to that by BC1, indicating that these two strains play roles in
starch degradation and H-2 production from the degraded products
in BC1, respectively. Acetic acid and ethanol, which were detected
as the major products of degradation of starch by V. fluvialis in
pure culture, seemed to be mainly utilized for H-2 production by
R. marinum in BC1 and the coculture. However, R. marinum in pure
culture could not produce H-2 from a synthetic medium containing acetic
acid and ethanol, suggesting that V. fluvialis supplied not only
substrates but also some unknown factors capable of inducing H-2
production from these substrates by R. marinum. A study using the
starch-rich microalgae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Dunaliella
tertiolecta, demonstrated that the above coculture could be applied to the
production of H-2 at high yield from raw starch in an algal biomass.