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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Evaluation of Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Hydrothermal Carbonization for Bioenergy Production
Published on: June 15, 2014
Enhanced biohydrogen production from corn stover by the combination of Clostridium cellulolyticum and hydrogen
Shou-Chi Zhang1, Qi-Heng Lai1, Yuan Lu1
1Key Laboratory for Industrial Biocatalysis, Ministry of Education of China, Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China.
Abstract:
Hydrogen was produced from steam-exploded corn stover by using a combination of the cellulolytic bacterium Clostridium cellulolyticum and non-cellulolytic hydrogen-producing bacteria. The highest hydrogen yield of the co-culture system with C. cellulolyticum and Citrobacter amalonaticus reached 51.9 L H2/kg total solid (TS). The metabolites from the co-culture system were significantly different from those of the mono-culture systems. Formate, which inhibits the growth of C. cellulolyticum, could be consumed by the hydrogen-evolving bacteria, and transformed into hydrogen. Glucose and xylose were released from corn stover via hydrolysis by C. cellulolyticum and were quickly utilized in dark fermentation with the co-cultured hydrogen-producing bacteria. Because the hydrolysis of corn stover by C. cellulolyticum was much slower than the utilization of glucose and xylose by the hydrogen-evolving bacteria, the sugar concentrations were always maintained at low levels, which favored a high hydrogen molar yield.
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