Liquid swine manure supplemented with glucose (10 g/L) was used as substrate for hydrogen production using an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor at 37 +/- 1 degrees C and pH 5.0 under different hydraulic retention times (HRTs). Decreasing HRT from 24 to 8 h caused an increasing hydrogen production rate from 0.05 to 0.15 L/h/L. Production rates of both total biogas and hydrogen were linearly correlated to HRT with R(2) being 0.993 and 0.997, respectively. The hydrogen yield ranged between 1.18 and 1.63 mol-H(2)/mol glucose and the 12 h HRT was preferred for high production rate and efficient yield. For all the five HRTs examined, the glucose utilization efficiency was over 98%. The biogas mainly consisted of carbon dioxide and hydrogen (up to 43%) with no methane detected throughout the experiment. Ethanol and organic acids were the major aqueous metabolites produced during fermentation, with acetic acid accounting for 56-58%. The hydrogen yield was found to be related to the acetate/butyrate ratio. (C) 2009 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.