Recent advances in fermentative biohydrogen production

Hydrogen energy, as a kind of clean energy with great potential, has been a hotspot for study worldwide. Based on the recent research on biohydrogen production, this paper gives a brief review on the following aspects: fermentative hydrogen production process and the engineering control statagy, key factors affecting the efficiency of hydrogen production, such as substrates, cysteine, metal ions, anaerobic fermentation terminal products, and formic acid and ammonia. Moreover, anaerobic fermentative hydrogen-producing strain and regulation and control of enzyme gene in fermentative hydrogen production are also discussed. Finally, the prospect of anaerobic fermentative biohydrogen production is proposed in three study areas, namely developing new techniques for breeding hydrogen-producing bacteria, exploitations of more strains and gene resources, and intensifying the application of microbial molecular breeding in hydrogen production. (c) 2007 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.