Strategies for improving biological hydrogen production

Biological hydrogen production presents a possible avenue for the large scale sustainable generation of hydrogen needed to fuel a future hydrogen economy. Amongst the possible approaches that are under active investigation and that will be briefly discussed; biophotolysis, photofermentation, microbial electrolysis, and dark fermentation, dark fermentation has the additional advantages of largely relying on already developed bioprocess technology and of potentially using various waste streams as feedstock. However, the major roadblock to developing a practical process has been the low yields, typically around 25%, well below those achievable for the production of other biofuels from the same feedstocks. Moreover, low yields also lead to the generation of side products whose large scale production would generate a waste disposal problem. Here recent attempts to overcome these barriers are reviewed and recent progress in efforts to increase hydrogen yields through physiological manipulation, metabolic engineering and the use of two-stage systems are described. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.