Biological production of hydrogen

There is another alternative we consider in this section, which is the direct use of sunlight to generate hydrogen using microbes. This is a biological alternative to using a photovoltaic panel and an electrolyser, as considered in the previous section. 

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BIO-Hj-FC, Biological production of hydrogen for fuel cell from organic residues. 

Photo-biological production of hydrogen is based on two steps photosynthesis (Equation 3.13) and hydrogen production catalysed by hydrogenases (Equation 3.14) in, for example, green algae and cyanobacteria (Melis, 2002). 

Ueno, Y., Kawai, T., Sato, S., Otsuka, S., and Morimoto, M. 1995. Biological production of hydrogen from cellulose by natural anaerobic microflora. J. Ferm. Bioeng., 79,395-397. 

Guan, Y. et al.. Two-stage photo-biological production of hydrogen by marine green alga Platymonas subcordiformis, Biochem. Eng. J., 19, 69, 2004. 

Weaver, P. F. et al. (1980). Photo-biological Production of Hydrogen. Solar Energy 24, 3-45. 

A recent study has pointed out the path forward for biological production of hydrogen is unclear [43]. In particular, much work remains to be done on current processes to achieve hydrogen production rates sufficient to power practical fuel cells, or to match the current electrolysis production rates for hydrogen ( 10001/h). Despite these adverse features, the methods have the virtue of being simple to execute and are ecologically friendly. 

Advantages of biological production of hydrogen over physical/chemical methods... 

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