Hydrogen is a common reactant in the petro-chemical industry and moreover recognized as a potential fuel within the next 20 years. The production of hydrogen from biomass and carbohydrate feedstock, though undoubtedly desirable and favored, is still at the level of laboratory or pilot scale. The present work reviews the current researched pathways. Different types of carbohydrates, and waste biomass are identified as feedstock for the fermentative bio-hydrogen production. Although all techniques suffer from drawbacks of a low H₂ yield and the production of a liquid waste stream rich in VFAs that needs further treatment, the technical advances foster the commercial utilization. Bacterial strains capable of high hydrogen yield are assessed, together with advanced techniques of co-culture fermentation and metabolic engineering. Residual VFAs can be converted. The review provides an insight on how fermentation can be conducted for a wide spectrum of feedstock and how fermentation effluent can be valorized by integrating fermentation with other systems, leading to an improved industrial potential of the technique. To boost the fermentation potential, additional research should firstly target its demonstration on pilot or industrial scale to prove the process efficiency, production costs and method reliability. It should secondly focus on optimizing the micro-organism functionality, and should finally develop and demonstrate a viable valorization of the residual VFA-rich waste streams.

氢是石油化学工业中的常见反应物，并且在未来20年内被认为是潜在的燃料。从生物质和碳水化合物原料生产氢气，尽管无疑是合乎需要的，但仍处于实验室或中试规模的水平。本工作回顾了当前研究的途径。不同类型的碳水化合物和废物生物质被确定为发酵生物制氢的原料。尽管所有技术都有H ₂低的缺点富含VFA的液体废物流的产量和生产需要进一步处理，技术进步促进了商业利用。评估了能够高产氢的细菌菌株，以及共培养发酵和代谢工程的先进技术。剩余的VFA可以转换。这篇综述提供了关于如何针对多种原料进行发酵以及如何通过将发酵与其他系统集成来实现发酵废水增值的见解，从而提高了该技术的工业潜力。为了提高发酵潜力，首先应进行其他研究，以其在中试或工业规模上的示范为目标，以证明工艺效率，生产成本和方法的可靠性。