I want to produce biohydrogen using microalgae as a substrate through dark fermentation in 250ml batch reactors. I have gone through literature review and anaerobic digestion sludge/cow dung has been taken as inoculum. However I am confused at this stage that whether we have to isolate bacteria from cow dung slurry/digestion sludge or can we just add it in the reactor in a desired ratio.
The sources of inoculum you mention are generally used as a starting hydrogen-producing consortia. According to my opinion, it is necessary to perform a pretreatment of inoculum for the inactivation of hydrogen scavengers in the inoculum. It is not necessary to isolate hydrogen-producing bacteria, they shall be selected during the fermentation.
Regards
Vit
1. hydrogen and methane, both can't be produced together
2. methane is not formed by bacteria
3. isolation is just used for identification and characterization. From an application point of view, isolation is not at all required. Also, one can't isolate something unless they know what to isolate. Anaerobic digestion is a community job and not done by one or few microbes.
4. to get a basic understanding of AD please have a look at this Book Microbiology of the biogas process
Article Biogas Production: Microbiology and Technology
Chapter Protocol for Start-Up and Operation of CSTR Biogas Processes
You can go through : Article The diversity of hydrogen-producing bacteria and methanogens...
https://www.fao.org/3/w7241e/w7241e0f.htm
As Vit Mateju said, you don't need to isolate pure strain. You can pretreat the sludge at 90-100 ℃ for 30 min to kill the hydrogen-consuming bacteria and fed it to the reactor.
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