Photosynthetic Purple Non Sulfur Bacteria in Hydrogen Producing Systems: New Approaches in the Use of Well Known and Innovative Substrates

During the last few years, progress has been made in developing cleaner and more efficient bioenergy producing systems. Innovative processes and novel substrates were assessed at lab scale, in order to investigate and promote a sustainable development of photobiological hydrogen production. Recent and innovative processes and the use of novel substrates are discussed in this chapter. The main focus is on photofermentation systems conducted on biomass derived substrates, as these are considered to be the applicative goal of hydrogen production. Indeed, it is also present a short excursus on some synthetic media, investigated as interesting opportunities for enlarging applicability of the hydrogen technology. The number of new findings here reported demonstrates that it is worth continuing the efforts for increasing the knowledge on the photofermentation process for H2 production, in particular owing to the need of reducing the use of fossil fuels for mitigating the emissions of GHG in the atmosphere