Biological reformation of ethanol to hydrogen by Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA009

A future hydrogen economy requires the sustainable production of renewable hydrogen. One method to produce hydrogen from stored renewable energy could be through reformation of bioethanol. However, chemically catalyzed reformation processes, although well studied, still present a number of significant technical challenges. Here, bioreformation of ethanol to hydrogen by photofermentation with the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris is described. Cultures were shown to tolerate up to 2% ethanol. An RSM (response surface methodology) was carried out in which three key factors, light intensity, and ethanol and glutamate concentrations were varied. The results showed that nearly 2 mol of H2 could be obtained from one mole of ethanol, 33% of that theoretically possible.