This study provides a systematic literature review, reporting the environmental and sustainability assessment of dark fermentative biohydrogen production. Eight thousand eight hundred forty peer-reviewed articles were obtained from online databases; only 43 were considered for review in this study. Among the life cycle stages, the result outcomes for the life cycle inventory analysis are mostly reported in the literature, accounting for 23%; this is followed by the system boundary, functional unit and goal and scope of the study, comprising 20%, 15% and 9%, respectively. These studies’ focus varied with further studies on the storage of biohydrogen (36%), followed by biohydrogen application (23%) and biohydrogen production accounted for only 9%, respectively. The reviewed studies were reported from secondary inventory datasets compared to primary inventory datasets. Several studies failed to formulate a clear study goal and scope, causing misrepresentation of the environmental outcomes. Based on this literature review, the sustainability assessment of biohydrogen production is still premature, requiring dedicated efforts to generate adequate inventory data for efficient sustainability assessment.

本研究提供了系统的文献综述，报告了暗发酵生物氢生产的环境和可持续性评估。从在线数据库中获得了 8840 篇同行评议文章；本研究仅考虑对 43 项进行审查。在生命周期阶段中，生命周期库存分析的结果结果多为文献报道，占23%；其次是研究的系统边界、功能单元和目标和范围，分别占20%、15%和9%。这些研究的重点随着对生物氢储存（36%）的进一步研究而变化，其次是生物氢应用（23%）和生物氢生产，分别仅占 9%。与主要库存数据集相比，从二级库存数据集中报告了审查的研究。一些研究未能制定明确的研究目标和范围，导致对环境结果的错误陈述。根据这篇文献综述，生物氢生产的可持续性评估仍然为时过早，需要专门努力生成足够的清单数据以进行有效的可持续性评估。