摘要

The effect of sludge inoculum concentration on acetate (Ac) production by a novel coupled system was investigated. The coupled system consisted of a syntrophic acetogenesis phase and a homoacetogenesis phase. The results showed that the inoculum concentration not only affected the acetate production at the syntrophic acetogenesis phase but also that produced at the homoacetogenesis phase. When the inoculum concentration in the syntrophic acetogenesis phase was 4 g l(-1), the acetate yield of the coupled system was found to be about 0.36 g Ac g(-1) glucose. In addition, when the inoculum concentration in the homoacetogenesis phase was 4 g l(-1), a maximum acetate production of 11.2 g l(-1) was obtained in the syntrophic acetogenesis phase and the yield of acetate was 0.39 g Ac g(-1) glucose. Analysis shows that the variation in acetate yield might be attributed to different metabolic pathways and the imbalance between hydrogen production and hydrogen consumption in the coupled system with different inoculum concentrations.