S145: Challenges of biohydrogen production at industrial scale

Progress in the biohydrogen production, due to its ability to be converted to electric energy in fuel cells, has followed a rapid pace during the past few years.  However, the industrial scale production of any biofuel including biohydrogen depends upon its economical and sustainable process cycle.  This talk focuses on need of real scale applications of biohydrogen production using thermophiles.  Issues related to scale up studies will be discussed with future goals and needs to have successful production of biohydrogen at industrial scale.  Nonfood lignocellulosic biomass is an ideal substrate for biohydrogen production, but pretreatment proves to be most expensive and inevitable step in converting biomass to biohydrogen.  Moreover localized availability of suitable feedstocks and lower rate of biohydrogen production make the industrial operation uneconomical.  In this context, thermophilic and hyperthermophilic bacteria have potential to produce elevated levels of biohydrogen through dark fermentation process due to their inherent ability of improved kinetics.  Decentralized thermophilic biohydrogen production employing cellulolytic and fermentative thermophiles in a single step consolidated process is desirable for successful industrial operation.  In addition to lignocellulosic feedstocks, biohydrogen production using globally available inexpensive feedstocks like food waste and industrial effluents suits well to the overall concept of ‘waste to energy’.  Extensive global networking is required between academia and industry for identification of suitable substrate, reactor design and fermentation studies, life cycle assessment and cost analysis to realize the thermophilic biohydrogen production at industrial level.