Fermentative biohydrogen production and its byproducts: A mini review of current technology developments

Abstract

This work highlighted the latest studies on fermentative biohydrogen production and its byproducts from (1) the APEC-BPT/ABBS-2015 Conference (held on September 2015 in Taiwan) with partly from (2) the ABBS 2016 Conference (held on October 2016 in South Korea) and (3) recent journal publications. Some novel technologies for enhancing biohydrogen production and integration systems for agricultural or industrial waste/wastewater treatment and bioenergy production were shared and discussed by ten keynote speakers. It has shown that the recent research trends are focusing on biohydrogen production enhancement, via a two-stage of photo-dark fermentation, a photosynthetic bacteria biofilm or an integration system of effectively using fermentation effluent. Real wastes/wastewaters such as palm-related biomasses were used as the feedstock for future application purpose. Moreover, some other recent journal reports indicate the importance of developing biohydrogen technology for generating sustainable biohythane, in enhancing energy recovery via two-stage anaerobic digestion and having the potential gradually to become a major hydrogen-generating technology for future development of green economy. In commercializing the biohydrogen technology, some key issues need to be solved are feedstock source exploration, improving bio-H2 production, developing H2 separation technology, utilization of bio-H2 and recovery of fermentation bioproducts. The role of algae in bio-H2 production technology was also discussed.