Biohydrogen production from microalgae for environmental sustainability

Shengnan Li; Fanghua Li; Xun Zhu; Qiang Liao; Jo-Shu Chang; Shih-Hsin Ho

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132717

Biohydrogen production from microalgae for environmental sustainability

Chemosphere. 2022 Mar;291(Pt 1):132717. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132717. Epub 2021 Oct 29.

Authors

Shengnan Li¹, Fanghua Li², Xun Zhu³, Qiang Liao³, Jo-Shu Chang⁴, Shih-Hsin Ho⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150090, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150090, China. Electronic address: fanghuahope01@hit.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems, Chongqing University, Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400044, China; Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan, ROC; Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, College of Engineering, Tunghai University, Taichung 407, Taiwan, ROC.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150090, China. Electronic address: stephen6949@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 34757051
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132717

Abstract

Hydrogen as a clean energy that is conducive to energy and environmental sustainability, playing a significant role in the alleviation of global climate change and energy crisis. Biohydrogen generation from microalgae has been reported as a highly attractive approach that can produce a benign clean energy carrier to achieve carbon neutrality and bioenergy sustainability. Thus, this review explored the mechanism of biohydrogen production from microalgae containing direct biophotolysis, indirect biophotolysis, photo fermentation, and dark fermentation. In general, dark fermentation of microalgae for biohydrogen production is relatively better than photo fermentation, biophotolysis, and microbial electrolysis, because it is able to consecutively generate hydrogen and is not reliant on energy supplied by natural sunlight. Besides, this review summarized potential algal strains for hydrogen production focusing on green microalgae and cyanobacteria. Moreover, a thorough review process was conducted to present hydrogen-producing enzymes targeting biosynthesis and localization of enzymes in microalgae. Notably, the most powerful hydrogen-producing enzymes are [Fe-Fe]-hydrogenases, which have an activity nearly 10-100 times better than [Ni-Fe]-hydrogenases and 1000 times better than nitrogenases. In addition, this work highlighted the major factors affecting low energy conversion efficiency and oxygen sensitivity of hydrogen-producing enzymes. Noting that the most practical pathway of biohydrogen generation was sulfur-deprivation compared with phosphorus, nitrogen, and magnesium deficiency. Further discussions in this work summarized the recent advancement in biohydrogen production from microalgae such as genetic engineering, microalgae-bacteria consortium, electro-bio-hydrogenation, and nanomaterials for developing enzyme stability and hydrolytic efficiency. More importantly, this review provided a summary of current limitations and future perspectives on the sustainable production of biohydrogen from microalgae.

Keywords: Advanced technologies; Biohydrogen; Microalgae; Microalgae-bacteria consortium (MBC); Nanoparticles (NPs).

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Biofuels
Cyanobacteria*
Fermentation
Hydrogen / analysis
Microalgae*

Substances

Biofuels
Hydrogen