NH^(+)_(4)is typically an inhibitor to hydrogen production from organic wastewater by photo-bacteria.In this experiment,biohydrogen generation with wild-type anoxygenic phototrophic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroideswas found to be sensitive to NH^(+)_(4)due to the significant inhibition of NH^(+)_(4)to its nitrogenase.In order to avoid the inhibition of NH^(+)_(4)to biohydrogen generation by R.sphaeroides,a glutamine auxotrophic mutant R.sphaeroides AR-3 was obtained by mutagenizing with ethyl methane sulfonate.The AR-3 mutant could generate biohydrogen efficiently in the hydrogen production medium with a higher NH^(+)_(4)concentration,because the inhibition of NH^(+)_(4)to nitrogenase of AR-3 was released.Under suitable conditions,AR-3 effectively produced biohydrogen from tofu wastewater,which normally contains 50–60 mg/L NH^(+)_(4),with an average generation rate of 14.2 mL/L$h.This generation rate was increased by more than 100%compared with that from wild-type R.sphaeroides.
