Chengdu Bio has been making progress in the research of straw fermentation hydrogen production

The fuel used by mankind for production and life has gone through such processes as firewood, coal, oil, and natural gas. From the development law, it can be seen that the hydrogen-carbon ratio of fuels is gradually increasing, which indicates that the energy of the future will probably be carbon-free hydrogen energy. the Lord. Hydrogen is a clean energy source and has a wide range of preparation sources. Fermentation hydrogen production technology is favored because it can process and utilize various organic wastes. At present, the anaerobic fermentation hydrogen production technology using sugar and starch as raw materials has matured, but there is still a technical bottleneck in fermentative hydrogen production using straw containing lignocellulose as a raw material. This is mainly due to the obstruction of the complex wood fiber structure. Microbial degradation and utilization.

Aiming at the technical bottleneck of hydrogen production from straw fermentation, Li Dong, research associate of the Liu Xiaofeng Research Group of the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed the hypothesis that the micro-oxygen conditions enhance the extracellular hydrolysis of lignocellulose and the hydrogen production from micro-oxygen fermentation. progress. Comparing the production of hydrogen by micro-aerobic and anaerobic fermentation, it was found that compared with anaerobic fermentation, the hydrogen production rate of micro-oxygen fermentation can be increased by about 44%, and the ORP of micro-oxygen fermentation is -300. ~-150mV, micro-oxygen conditions can tolerate higher volatile organic acid concentrations. Through comparative analysis of microbial communities, four strains of Enterococcus, Bacteroides, Peptoclostridium, Clostridium, etc., which are major contributors to hydrogen production from fermentation, were found in the two fermentation systems, while two pairs of fermentation products, Citrobacete and Escherichia, existed in the micro-oxygen fermentation system. Hydrogen contributes to the genus; the presence of Lactobacillus mucosae and Bifidobacterium animalis has an adverse effect on anaerobic and micro-aerobic hydrogen production. This study puts forward a new direction for hydrogen production from straw fermentation.

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21106145, 21476222). The related results were published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2016, 41(12):5456-5464.