Biological hydrogen production from livestock wastewaters

The potential for hydrogen production from livestock wastewaters and slurries was studied. The hydrogen-production experiments results showed little to no hydrogen production from the slurry. Some of the test conditions showed the production of biogas, but the composition was ≈ 70% methane and 30% CO₂. The addition of inocula containing a hydrogen-producing consortium did not result in hydrogen production, even when ammonia inhibition was relieved via sample dilution and high pH volatilization. The hypothesis for the failure to produce measurable hydrogen is that hydrogen consumption is keeping pace with hydrogen production in this complex waste. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 228th ACS National Meeting (Philadelphia, PA 8/22-26/2004).