Biological Hydrogen Production from Amphora sp. Isolated from Eastern Coast of Thailand

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Burapha University, Chonburi, 20131, Thailand

Abstract

The world is finding ways of producing fuel from many sources to replace the fossil fuels. Hydrogen is considered one of the most promising fuels for the future. One biological way of producing hydrogen from solar energy is using photosynthetic microorganisms.The objective of this study is to search for marine algae which produce hydrogen and study the appropriate conditions to produce hydrogen from marine algae. Firstly, the 5 strains of algae were studied the total gas production. Amphora sp. was selected and studied the appropriate conditions to produce hydrogen gas. The first condition, we studied the important factors for marine algae which were present and absent sulfur. The second condition was to find the suitable pH for producing hydrogen which were pH 7, pH 8 and pH 9. The last condition, we studied the optimal light intensity which were 481, 1075 and 2085 lux. The result showed that Amphora sp. can produce hydrogen gas in present sulfur media, pH 8 and light intensity 2085 lux in volume 495.3 ml per 1 L of algae or the average rate of produce hydrogen is 0.798 ml per g of algae per hour.