Chapter 13 - Photobiological production of hydrogen from biomass

Abstract

Assuring global energy security prompts a reduced dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels, which, in turn, generates an increasing demand for alternative sustainable fuels. Biohydrogen has grabbed attention globally as a reliable next-generation fuel. In the long run, photobiological production technologies may provide cost-effective hydrogen production from sunlight while emitting almost no carbon. Biomass from a wide variety of microorganisms ranging from fermentative and photosynthetic bacteria to microalgae serve as excellent feedstock for biological techniques of biohydrogen production, which serve as the cleaner and energy-efficient substitute to traditional methods of hydrogen production from fossil fuels. The photosynthetic capability, of these microbes, aids in the hydrogen production process by enabling easy release of electrons from water via its photolysis, using sunlight as the sole energy source. Numerous researches have been carried out to genetically modify different microbial strains and their genes responsible for hydrogen production, to devise improved bioreactors to carry out microbial fermentation and to find out different experimental conditions and approaches for enhancing the production techniques and making the process more sustainable. This chapter summarizes the findings of these researches and discusses the challenges, knowledge gaps, and future perspectives of commercialization of photobiological hydrogen production from biomass.