To obtain additional hydrogen recovery from the downstream photosynthetic biohydrogen reactor (PBR), a system (PBR1-MFCs-PBR2) that combined PBRs with three single chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs) was proposed in this study. The results revealed that the PBR2 in PBR1-MFCs-PBR2 showed a hydrogen production rate of 0.44 +/- 0.22 mmol L h(-1), which was 15 and 4 times higher than those obtained by direct connecting the two PBRs (PBR1 PBR2) and pH regulated system (PBR1 pH regulation PBR2), respectively. In addition, the PBR1 MFCs PBR2 exhibited the highest glucose utilization (eta(g)) of 97.6 +/- 2.1 %, while lower g values of 75.6 +/- 2.2% and 70.1 +/- 1.2% was obtained for PBR1-PBR2 and PBR1-pH regulation PBR2, respectively. These improvements were due to the removal of inhibitory byproduct and H+ from the PBR1 effluent by the MFCs. Copyright (C) 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.