Introduction to hydrogen production

Hydrogen gas is currently produced from a variety of primary fossil sources such as natural gas, naphtha, heavy oil, water and coal. It is obvious that hydrogen production can be environmentally friendly only if the precursor used to extract hydrogen is renewable. Biomass, a product of photosynthesis, is an attractive alternative to fossil feedstocks as it can be considered as a renewable H2 precursor. The solar hydrogen production also attracts great attention as a key technology in the future because of its potential to use the abundance of this energy and water. In this chapter, we report a summary about the hydrogen production methods from less costly and abundant biomass, the advances in the conversion methods of solar energy into hydrogen and, finally, the challenges that need to be addressed over the coming years to verify the feasibility of hydrogen production as a competitive process in the hydrogen economy.