Demonstration of the possibility to power a fuel cell with hydrogen derived from the fermentation of sugar

Methanogenic and hydrogen-producing bacteria constitute anaerobic bacterial communities. Inhibition of the methanogenic population is a suitable way of enhancing the production of hydrogen, and obtaining abundant and clean quantities of it. In this work, bacteria present in a culture were treated with sucrose solution and the resulting gases operated fuel cells without any further purification processes. The mixture containing hydrogen and other gaseous products (bio-H2) was introduced into a syringe and a eudiometer. As the cell consumed H2 and generated electricity, the volume of gas introduced decreased. Three different methods of evaluation were employed to calculate H2 percentage in the mixture, and were compared with the percentage obtained by chromatography. The excellent correlation between these measures demonstrates acceptable validity of the proposed methods, that the mixture does not contain harmful substances for the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells and that the obtained bio-H2 can be used without further purification.