Production of biohydrogen: Current perspectives and future prospects

Biohydrogen production is considered a development vital to a sustainable global clean energy supply and a promising alternative to conventional fossil fuels, as it has the potential to eliminate most of the problems that fossil fuels create, if not all. The major advantage of energy from biohydrogen is the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions as the conversion of hydrogen to energy, either via combustion or via fuel cells, results only in pure water. With the use of appropriate technologies, biohydrogen would be the desired clean product of the microbial process. Its production has attracted worldwide attention because of its potential to become an inexhaustible, low-cost, and renewable source of clean energy. Thus biohydrogen is believed to be one of the biofuels of the future. Expert groups of various disciplines throughout the world are focusing on the production and application of biohydrogen, as well as the societal impacts of implementation. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.