Hydrogen production as a novel process of wastewater treatment—studies on tofu wastewater with entrapped R. sphaeroides and mutagenesis

Attention is focusing on hydrogen production from wastewater, not only because hydrogen is a clean energy but also because it can be a process for wastewater treatment. In this paper, the characteristics of biological hydrogen production as a process of wastewater treatment is discussed by a comparison with methane production. The hydrogen production from tofu wastewater by anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria and its potential for wastewater treatment are reported. The possibility of co-cultivation with heterotrophic anaerobic bacteria was also investigated. As a solution to overcome the repressive effect of NH₄⁺ on hydrogen production by anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria, a study was done using glutamine auxotroph which was obtained by chemical mutagenesis. To confirm that the mutation had occurred in DNA molecular level, the glutamine synthetase gene was cloned and sequenced.