(1.School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China; 2.Sanya Science and Education Innovation Park, Wuhan University of Technology, Sanya, Hainan 572024, China; 3.Shaoxing Institute for Advanced Research, Wuhan University of Technology, Shaoxing, Zhejiang 312300, China;4.State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China; 5.School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China)
Abstract:The research of producing poly-β-hydroxybutyrate by traditional fermentation has become mature, conditions of the fermentation operation have been reported by researchers. Unfortunately, the cost of obtained PHB by fermentation still higher than PHB from chemical synthesis or others polymer produced by petrochemical industry. Here, a sphalerite ZnSe semiconductor photocatalyst was synthesized by hydrothermal method. This material was combined with Ralstonia eutropha H16 which produces PHB. The function of ZnSe in the biological hybrid photosynthetic system was explored by testing the performance of photocatalytic water decomposition and hydrogen production of individual materials and the change of PHB content of the system after the biological hybrid photosynthetic system was constructed with bacteria. The results show that the material has good hydrogen production performance in a short time, but poor performance in a long cycle. Compared with the control group, the highest PHB yield of the hybrid system was 1.87 times, and the system remained stable under the condition of long-term continuous work. The material still had a positive performance in the system at high concentration. By measuring the substrate consumption and calculating the efficiency, the specific way of the photocatalytic materials affecting the biological photosynthetic hybrid system was discussed. The combination of ZnSe synthesized in this way with Ralstonia europha H16 was able to effectively increase the yield of PHB under light.