Integrated approaches for waste to biohydrogen using nanobiomediated towards low carbon bioeconomy

Current energy demand and environmental pollution issues are growing due to global urbanization and development in many countries, leading to amplified energy/material consumption, serious and irreparable damage to the ecosystem with simultaneous waste formation. The world energy demand is mainly accomplished by finite fossil fuel-based reserves, which have a crucial impact on the ecosystem/environment, and consequently, there is a need for a sustainable and/or low-carbon bioeconomy. Hydrogen (H-2) generation from renewable biomass/waste is a promising bioenergy system that can generate low-carbon hydrogen and reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions by 2050. Waste-to-biohydrogen (WtBH) can become a portion of the zero-emissions fuel replacement for natural gas and serve as one of the sustainable cleaner hydrogen sources which are environmentally friendly and economically feasible. In this view, bio-H-2 is considered appropriate because of its high potential as a green, clean, and sustainable carbon-neutral energy source in the emerging low-carbon hydrogen bioeconomy. Nanostructured systems based on renewable biomass/waste sources depict a high potential to produce sustainable and low carbon biohydrogen economy because of their excellent physicochemical structures, such as high efficiency, high surface/volume ratio, non/low-toxicity, high chemical/mechanical stability, biodegradability/biocompatibility, availability, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and unusual electrical/mechanical and magnetic properties. Renewable biomass and waste materials are extensively considered green sources to prepare greener and more sustainable sorts of mono- or bi-metallic nanomaterials using facile approaches. This review summarizes the deployment of thermochemical and biochemical approaches for WtBH using nanobiocatalysts towards a low-carbon bioeconomy.

Automated summary

Current energy demand and environmental pollution issues are growing due to global urbanization and development, which leads to increased energy/material consumption, irreversible damage to the ecosystem, and waste formation. Generating hydrogen from renewable biomass/waste is a promising solution to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to a low-carbon bioeconomy. Nanostructured systems based on renewable biomass/waste sources have the potential to produce sustainable and low carbon biohydrogen due to their unique physicochemical properties.