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A step towards commercialization of bio hydrogen photo production by green micro algae

Fatemeh Khosravirtabar

Hydrogen gas as a unique energy carrier and the cleanest burning fuel, is widely known to be future fuel. Unlike current electrochemical and chemical methods of H2 production, which are neither commercially scalable nor environmentally friendly, microalgal H2 photoproduction has the potential of being a non CO2-emitter and affordable method. However extreme sensitivity of hydrogenase enzyme to photosynthetic O2 naturally prevents large-scale H2 production upon illumination. Although a two-phase su lfur deficiency method has been established to deal with this incompatibility, its time and cost demanding, so that this model lacks commercial maturity. Despite much effort has been made so far, no proper economic alternative for the sulfur deprivation model, with higher or even same productivity and sustainability, has been presented. Herein we propose a simple and viable alternative, through introducing a chemical O2 scavenger system, called oxysorb, to algal cultures.