State of the art and progress in production of biohydrogen

Three of the great challenges facing humanity in the 21st century are energy supply, climate change, and global food security. Although global energy demand is expected to continue to increase, the availability of low cost energy will continue to diminish. Coupled with increasing concerns about climate change due to the CO2 release from the combustion of fossil fuels, there is now an urgent need to develop clean, renewable energy system. Hydrogen is a clean, zero carbon emission, and renewable energy carrier, with a high specific heat of combustion. Hydrogen can be used in internal combustion engines to generate mechanical power or in fuel cells to generate electricity. As hydrogen can be produced from many natural sources, it is expected to have a stable price in the future, independent of the fluctuation in price and availability of single sources. Hydrogen also allows flexibility in balancing centralized and decentralized power supply. © 2012 Bentham Science Publishers. All rights reserved