Biotechnological hydrogen production: research for efficient light energy conversion

The study of biological hydrogen production by using photosynthetic bacteria and cyanobacteria is described based on a national R&D project in Japan. We describe here the subjects examined in the research for photosynthetic bacteria: analysis of the relationship between the penetration of light to photobioreactor and hydrogen production, genetic engineering of photosynthetic bacteria to control the pigment content for making the light penetration easy. Examples of bench-scale reactors are shown. Genetic manipulation of hydrogenase to enhance the protein expression is also studied. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.