Biohydrogen production by Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum TERI S7 from oil reservoir flow pipeline

•Thermophilic hydrogen producing strain was isolated from oil well flow pipeline of oil reservoir of ONGC Bombay (Uran).•16S rRNA sequence of TERI S7 had 98% identity to Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum.•Optimization of culture condition for maximum hydrogen production was studied.•TERI S7 was able to produce hydrogen with different kinds of sugar (mono, di and polysaccharides).•Fermentative characterization of strain was done under optimum condition of fermentation for hydrogen production.

Thermophilic dark fermentative hydrogen producing bacterial strain, TERI S7, isolated from an oil reservoir flow pipeline located in Mumbai, India, showed 98% identity with Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum by 16S rRNA gene analysis. It produced 1450–1900 ml/L hydrogen under both acidic and alkaline conditions; at a temperature range of 45–60 °C. The maximum hydrogen yield was 2.5 ± 0.2 mol H2/mol glucose, 2.2 ± 0.2 mol H2/mol xylose and 5.2 ± 0.2 mol H2/mol sucrose, when the respective sugars were used as carbon source. The cumulative hydrogen production, hydrogen production rate and specific hydrogen production rate by the strain TERI S7 with sucrose as carbon source was found to be 1704 ± 105 ml/L, 71 ± 6 ml/L/h and 142 ± 13 ml/g/h respectively. Major soluble metabolites produced during fermentation were acetic acid and butyric acid. The strain TERI S7 was also observed to produce hydrogen continuously up to 48 h at pH 3.9.