Effective liquid-to-gas phase partitioning

The Faculty of Science hosts the inaugural lecture of Professor Vincent Gray from the School of Molecular and Cell Biology.

Under dark anaerobic thermophilic conditions the maximum efficiency for acidogenic biohydrogen generation by a single or multi-species bacterial culture is constrained by thermodynamic conditions to four moles of hydrogens (H2) per mole of glucose. The Wits Biology laboratory has demonstrated that under certain operational conditions an anaerobic multi-species bacterial consortium in a fluidized bacterial granular bed bioreactor can generate more than four moles of hydrogen per mole of glucose. Partitioning of dissolved hydrogen between mobile solid, liquid and gaseous phases creates conditions which are thermodynamically favourable for the reduction of protons by syntrophic bacteria in the absence of methanogens.

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