Metabolic Engineering of Microorganisms for Biohydrogen Production

Abstract Metabolic engineering has been studied extensively to improve microbial hydrogen (H2) production. Elimination or modification of carbon metabolic pathways, incorporation of nonnative metabolic pathways leading to H2 production, utilization of various carbon substrates, and improvement of H2-producing enzymes (hydrogenase and nitrogenase) were the major focuses of these studies. This chapter highlights recent developments with metabolic engineering toward improving the yield and rate of microbial biohydrogen production.