Leftover Living Cells’ Derived Biomass and Microorganisms as a Source for Hydrogen Energy Production

The use of biofuel like hydrogen instead of fossil fuel in various sectors such as vehicle transport, electricity generation, running industries, and powering homes can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. At present form, the costs of producing biofuel are relatively higher than fossil fuels. The contributions from worldwide researchers in the experimental study of hydrogen production by various routes are essential which may help in designing the reactors for generating the hydrogen with less cost and optimizing the experimental conditions. This chapter initially discusses about the bad effects of greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels and the importance of renewable hydrogen energies toward the hydrogen era in the introduction section. The hydrogen extraction techniques from the leftover biowaste materials into hydrogen production through biological (fermentation, biophotolysis, and microbial electrochemical cells) and thermochemical routes (gasification, pyrolysis, and high-pressure aqueous) have been discussed in a separate section. Few portions of this chapter summarize the analysis results of recently published articles focused on the title of “H” generations from the various biowaste, or leftover living cells derived biomass and microorganism biomass sources. The information such as types of techniques (biological and thermochemical routes), substrates, and inoculum used, hydrogen production rate, and new advancements and achievements done by the various worldwide researchers are summarized in Table. From the summarization results of the table, it is revealed that most of worldwide researchers have used fermentation techniques for hydrogen generation. The biowastes such as agricultural residues, food waste, and wastewater were used as a main source for the hydrogen generations by worldwide researchers.