Growth Study and Biological Hydrogen Production by novel strain Bacillus paramycoides

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University Malaysia, CDT 250, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
² Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University Malaysia, CDT 250, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Abu Dhabi University, 59911, Zayed City, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
⁴ Curtin Malaysia Research Institute, Curtin University Malaysia, CDT 250, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

Corresponding author: eldonchuach@postgrad.curtin.edu.my

Abstract

Industrial revolution has created high dependent on fossil fuels for energy creation. However, combustion of fossil fuels has created excessive amount of greenhouse gases, hence led to climate change. Thus, renewable energy has been proposed to alleviate the environmental pollution issues around the globe. One of the promising renewable energies is green hydrogen energy. Commercialized technologies such as electrolysis and thermochemical reaction are utilized to form hydrogen energy. Nonetheless, these processes require high energy and yet producing greenhouse gases that harm the environment. In this study, biodegradation process to produce hydrogen energy has been explored. To our knowledge, Bacillus paramycoides strain has not yet been investigated for biological hydrogen evolution. Therefore, in this paper, the ability of Bacillus paramycoides to produce biological hydrogen has been studied. The rod-shaped and gram-positive Bacillus paramycoides was identified under scanning electron microscope and gram staining procedure. Furthermore, biological hydrogen generation by Bacillus sp. was experimented for 96 hours. The result shows that 4668 ± 120 ppm cumulative hydrogen gas was generated through dark fermentation process. For Bacillus sp. growth study, lag, log, and stationary phase have been achieved in 96 hours. In a summary, metabolic engineering to degrade abundant biomass wastes is a sustainable pathway to produce hydrogen energy, simultaneously resolve waste management issue around the globe.