Hydrogen production with the cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis Mahfoud Ainas a,b , Selma Hasnaoui a , Rabah Bouarab a , Nadia Abdi a , Nadjib Drouiche a,c,* , Nabil Mameri a,** a Unit e de recherche URIE, Ecole Nationale Polytechnique, 10 Ave Pasteur, Algiers, Algeria b D epartement de G enie des Proc ed es Pharmaceutiques, Universit e de M ed ea, M ed ea, Algeria c Centre de Recherche en technologie des Semi-conducteurs pour l’Energ etique (CRTSE), 2, Bd Frantz Fanon BP140, Alger e 7 merveilles, 16038, Algeria article info Article history: Received 12 September 2016 Received in revised form 5 December 2016 Accepted 13 December 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: H 2 bio-production Cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis Bioreactors configuration abstract The non-nitrogen-fixing and filamentous cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis was examined under continuous illuminations of 0.8, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 5 cloaks for a production of bio- hydrogen in three different photobioreactors (cylindrical, conical and conical with an excavated base). The bacterial cell was first grown on a Zarrouk culture medium under batch operational conditions in order to examine the effects of physicochemical parame- ters on photobiological hydrogen production at an incubation temperature of 34  C. The photo-production of hydrogen was dependent on the NaHCO 3 and NaCl concentrations, pH, light intensity, and photobioreactors design. Indeed, the main result shows that the hydrogen evolution by the cyanobacterium S. platensis was improved by using a conical photobioreactor with an excavated base designed in our laboratory. The high bio-hydrogen volume produced, (220 mL, was achieved at 3.5 klx in this photobioreactor of a 200 mL culture volume. This photobioreactor provides an important illuminated surface of 255 cm 2 and limits the shade and photolysis phenomena in dense cell cultures. © 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The production of hydrogen, a future fuel, which can be converted into heat and electricity with a minimal environ- mental impact, comes mainly from natural gas reforming and from naphtha-oil reforming in the chemical industry [1e5]. However, methane, naphtha-oil and their combustion prod- ucts are both greenhouse gases and there are limited reserves of fossil fuels on earth. Environmental concerns about the climate changes and the limited availability in the future of fossil fuels force the transformation of the energy system from a scheme mainly based on the combustion of fossil fuels to another based on sustainable CO 2 -free sources [6,7] or the development of renewable non-polluting energy sources, including photobiological hydrogen production [8e14]. It is expected that the development of renewable technologies could bring water electrolysis from wind and solar, or thermo- chemical solar to a competitive market. Only a low percentage of worldwide hydrogen production is based on water * Corresponding author. Centre de Recherche en technologie des Semi-conducteurs pour l’Energ etique (CRTSE), 2, Bd Frantz Fanon BP140, Alger e 7 merveilles, 16038, Algeria. Fax: þ213 21 433511. ** Corresponding author. E-mail address: nadjibdrouiche@yahoo.fr (N. Drouiche). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (2017) 1 e6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.12.056 0360-3199/© 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Ainas M, et al., Hydrogen production with the cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.12.056