Recent advances in fermentative biohydrogen production

Utilization of unsustainable fossil fuels as energy resources releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere leading to global warming and environmental pollution. An eye-catching solution would be the production of biological liquids like hydrogen, which is a clean renewable fuel using dark/light fermentative approach. A brief insight into the effect of parameters that could enhance H₂ production is the major focus of this review. Although dark/light fermentative approaches for H₂ production is known for quite long, scaling up this technology has seen major hurdles. The review thus throws light on the need for novel tactics such as microbial immobilization, nanotechnologies, and genetic engineering to varying the microbial genomes for improvement of H₂ yield. Further, thoughts on the difficulties that could be faced and potential solutions about the prospects for H₂ technology to be commercially used as a sustainable fuel in the near future are also emphasized.