LAUSR

Abstract Clostridium strain BOH3 can produce hydrogen from agro-residues based media. This report reveals its ability to utilize fruit waste for hydrogen production. In the first approach, for BOH3 fermentation fruit waste hydrolysates generated from microwave (2.45 GHz for 15 min) or moist heat (121 °C for 15 min) treatment were used as substrates, after 24 h the hydrogen production was 2526–3118 ml/l, with the yield 2.43–2.51 mol/mol hexose. In the second approach, strain BOH3 was directly cultured into heterogeneous media supplemented with 52.57 ± 2.20 g TS/l fruit waste, after 60 h it supported a high level of hydrogen production 10720 ± 137 ml/l, with the yield 359.97 ± 12.80 ml/g TS utilized. Further investigation showed that strain BOH3 can excrete 0.35 ± 0.08 U/ml amylase, 1.22 ± 0.10 U/ml cellulase, 0.72 ± 0.10 U/ml pectinase and 3.11 ± 0.04 U/ml xylanase from fruit waste based media. Consequently, strain BOH3 renders a consolidated bioprocessing for biohydrogen production from fruit waste.