A fundamental study of the application of bacteria to the recovery of toxic heavy metals from aqueous environments was carried out. The biosorption characteristics of cadmium and lead ions were determined with purple nonsulfur bacteria, Rhodobactersphaeroides and hydrogen bacteria, Alcaligenes eutrophus H16 that were inactivated by steam sterilization. A simplified version of the metal binding model proposed by Plette et al. was used for the description of meal binding data. The results showed that the biosorption of bivalent metal ions to whole cell bodies of the bacteria was due to monodentate binding to two different types of acidic sites: carboxilic and phosphatic-type sites. The number of metal binding sites of A. eutrophus was 2.4-fold larger than that of R. sphaeroides.
Statistically based experimental designs were applied to optimize the fermentation process parameters for hydrogen (H{sub 2}) production by co-culture of Clostridium acidisoli and Rhodobactersphaeroides with sucrose as substrate. An initial screening using the Plackett-Burman design identified three factors that significantly influenced H{sub 2} yield: sucrose concentration, initial pH, and inoculum ratio. These factors were considered to have simultaneous and interdependent effects. A central composite design and response surface analysis were adopted to further investigate the mutual interactions among the factors and to identify the values that maximized H{sub 2} production. The optimal substrate concentration, initial pH, and inoculum ratio of C. acidisoli to R. sphaeroides were 11.43 g/L sucrose, 7.13, and 0.83, respectively. Using these optimal culture conditions, substrate conversion efficiency was determined as ...
We demonstrate a two-step process used to increase the hydrogen yield from sucrose and to relieve the pollution threat caused by resultant fatty acids in dark-fermentation. In batch tests of dark-fermentation using microflora, the maximum hydrogen production rate was >360 mL H{sub 2}/Lh and the maximum hydrogen yield was 3.67 mol H{sub 2}/mol sucrose. The fatty acids produced in dark-fermentation were mainly butyrate and acetate with a small amount of propionate, valerate, n-butyl alcohol, and caproate. Photo-fermentation with Rhodobactersphaeroides SH2C was then employed to convert these small molecular fatty acids into hydrogen. The total hydrogen yield from sucrose increased from the maximum of 3.67 mol H{sub 2}/mol sucrose in dark-fermentation to 6.63 mol H{sub 2}/mol sucrose by using the two-step process. No butyrate, acetate, propionate, or valerate was detected in the final fermentation effluent after photo-fermentation. Our ...
The H-D exchange reaction has been measured with the D2-H2O system, for Rhodobacter capsulatus JP91, which lacks the hupSL-encoded hydrogenase, and R. capsulatus BSE16, which lacks the HupUV proteins....Full Text Available
Photosynthetic (Ps) electron transport pathways often contain multiple electron carriers with overlapping functions. Here we focus on two c-type cytochromes (cyt) in facultative phototrophic...Full Text Available