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  • Glossary item | 18 Mar 2025

Bio-hydrogen

Bioeconomy
Hydrogen from biomass, also called “bio-hydrogen” refers today only to the hydrogen produced from steam biomethane reforming, leaving out numerous interesting biomass to hydrogen pathways, such as gasification, biological processes and others. The biomass-to-hydrogen processes can be divided into two different categories:
  1. Thermochemical pathways including pyrolysis, hydro- and solvo-thermal liquefaction, and gasification followed by bio-oil upgrading and reforming, or syngas upgrading and biomethane reforming;
  2. The biological pathways including water–gas shift reactions promoted by micro-organisms, photo-fermentation and dark-fermentation, anaerobic digestion and biomethane reforming, and bio-photolysis with photosynthetic organisms (microalgae and cyanobacteria) such as microbial electrolysis cell.

Marco Buffi, Matteo Prussi, Nicolae Scarlat, Energy and environmental assessment of hydrogen from biomass sources: Challenges and perspectives, Biomass and Bioenergy, Volume 165, 2022, 106556, ISSN 0961-9534, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2022.106556

Source category: Scientific & Tecnical Literature