a brief review on current strategies of bio-hydrogen production from waste materials - a case study in malaysia

Hydrogen is a regenerative and environmentally friendly fuel that has attracted considerable attention among scientists. it has a high energy yield (122kj/g) which is about 2.75 times greater than that of hydrocarbon fuel and could directly produce electricity through fuel cells. the hydrogen economy concept envisions that the future global energy demands will be mainly satisfied by hydrogen fuel instead of fossil fuels. for a successful transition to the hydrogen economy, hydrogen production should be well developed first so that the technology can be implemented in a sustainable, clean, and economical manner. conventional hydrogen gas production methods are electrochemical, thermochemical, photochemical, photocatalytic, or photo electrochemical processes. however, these processes do not accomplish the dual goals of waste reduction and energy production. furthermore, these methods require electricity derived from fossil fuel combustion. for global environmental consideration, biohydrogen production from renewable waste sources represents an important area of bioenergy production. production of clean energy sources and utilization of waste materials make biological hydrogen production a novel and promising approach to meet the increasing energy need as a substitute for fossil fuels. the main objective of this review is to evaluate the potential use of waste materials that are rich in carbohydrates as the raw material for hydrogen production by using biological processes.