Evaluation of energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the production of biohydrogen from sugar rich feedstock

The use of alternative fuels is increasing in order to reduce the energy consumption and emissions. The 2003/30/EC European Directive aims to promote the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels instead of oil derivatives for transport purposes. In long term this is expected to contribute to the fulfillment of European climate change agreements. Therefore, hydrogen appears as a promising alternative fuel and “energy carrier”. Hydrogen can be produced from renewable sources, namely biomass [1], and more particularly by the photobiological method and dark fermentation process [2], being designated as “biohydrogen” (bioH2) [3]. This study regards to life cycle analysis considering energy, emissions and costs of bioH2 production from microalgae, sugarcane (SC) and potato peels (PP)