Abstract

Biofuels are anticipated to enable a shift from fossil fuels for renewable transportation and manufacturing fuels, with biohydrogen considered attractive since it could offer the largest reduction of global carbon budgets. Currently, lignocellulosic biohydrogen production remains inefficient with pretreatments that are heavily fossil fuel-dependent. However, bacteria using alkali-treated biomass could streamline biofuel production while reducing costs and fossil fuel needs. An alkaliphilic bacterium, Halanaerobium hydrogeniformans, is described that is capable of biohydrogen production at levels rivaling neutrophilic strains, but at pH 11 and hypersaline conditions. H. hydrogeniformans ferments a variety of 5-and 6-carbon sugars derived from hemicellulose and cellulose including cellobiose, and forms the end products hydrogen, acetate, and formate. Further, it can also produce biohydrogen from switchgrass and straw pretreated at temperatures far lower than any previously reported and in solutions compatible with growth. Hence, this bacterium can potentially increase the efficiency and efficacy of biohydrogen production from renewable biomass resources.

Department(s)

Biological Sciences

Second Department

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Sponsor(s)

United States. Department of Energy. Office of Biological and Environmental Research
University of Missouri. Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Program

Comments

This work was made possible through support from the US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research and the University of Missouri Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Program.

Keywords and Phrases

Alkaliphile; Biofuel; Biohydrogen; Extremophile

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1664-302X

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2012 Frontiers Media, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

Publication Date

01 Mar 2012

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