title: Challenges and opportunities for hydrogen production from microalgae.
abstract: The global population is predicted to increase from ~7.3 billion to over 9 billion people by 2050. Together with rising economic growth, this is forecast to result in a 50% increase in fuel demand, which will have to be met while reducing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions by 50-80% to maintain social, political, energy and climate security. This tension between rising fuel demand and the requirement for rapid global decarbonization highlights the need to fast-track the coordinated development and deployment of efficient cost-effective renewable technologies for the production of CO2 neutral energy. Currently, only 20% of global energy is provided as electricity, while 80% is provided as fuel. Hydrogen (H2 ) is the most advanced CO2 -free fuel and provides a 'common' energy currency as it can be produced via a range of renewable technologies, including photovoltaic (PV), wind, wave and biological systems such as microalgae, to power the next generation of H2 fuel cells. Microalgae production systems for carbon-based fuel (oil and ethanol) are now at the demonstration scale. This review focuses on evaluating the potential of microalgal technologies for the commercial production of solar-driven H2 from water. It summarizes key global technology drivers, the potential and theoretical limits of microalgal H2 production systems, emerging strategies to engineer next-generation systems and how these fit into an evolving H2 economy.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oey
authors.affiliation: Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne Linda
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Sawyer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
authors.forename: Ian Lawrence
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Ross
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hankamer
mesh_terms: D056804:Biofuels; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000639:trends*; D003246:Conservation of Energy Resources / Q000639:trends; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D006864:Hydrogenase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D058086:Microalgae / Q000378:metabolism*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010100:Oxygen / Q000737:chemistry; D058433:Photobioreactors; D010782:Photolysis; D020524:Thylakoids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels; D006859:Hydrogen; D006864:Hydrogenase; D010100:Oxygen
keywords: algae; fuel; hydrogen; renewable energy; solar; water