MOHAMED KAMAL
The world is facing an energy crisis from the depletion of fossil fuels, and the problems it causes because of the of carbon emissions that pollute the environment and increases the phenomenon of global warming, which led to the search for renewable energy sources.
Thus, the importance of biofuels extracted from renewable and clean sources such as microalgae emerged. Examples of biofuels are green hydrogen and bioethanol, which are clean and safer sources.
Biofuels are green hydrogen and bioethanol, which are cleaner and safer sources, whereas Biohydrogen is H2 that is produced biologically.
Interest is high in this technology because hydrogen is a clean fuel and can be readily produced from certain kinds of biomass.
Researcher Eman Ismail Ahmed, Faculty of Science,Tanta University, claims that she dealt with the first master’s thesis on biohydrogen production from microalgae at the university level.
The researcher claimed that she achieving the production of 3 liters of hydrogen from 30 grams of algae.
In her thesis, she revealed that the problem lies in the emissions caused by “fossil fuel” energy, and thus harms the environment and increases global warming.
In addition to that, some researchers have tried to produce hydrogen as a new and clean energy, but they were facing with the problem of the green hydrogen cost of production, as producing one liter of hydrogen requires 9 liters of fresh water, which requires a high cost of production from water decomposition.
The thesis was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Mustafa Al-Sheikh, former vice president of Tanta University, professor of algae in Faculty of Science, Tanta University; Dr. Metwally Abdel-Azim Metwally, former dean of the Faculty of Science, and professor of microbiology at the Botany Department, Tanta University; and
Dr. Mustafa Al-Shoubri, professor of algae at the Botany Department, Tanta University.
The researcher pointed out that algae are a clean and cheap source, which reduces the production cost of the process of treating salty water and separating oxygen molecules and green hydrogen.
She also claimed that she found other alternatives to produce green hydrogen using algae through bacteria present in wastewater.
The researcher concluded that, through research experiments and using samples, results were reached, including the productivity of 3 liters of green hydrogen from 30 grams of algae.
The researcher also recommended the need to produce bio-hydrogen by the biological method from micro-algae, which increases the amount of hydrogen produced and reduces the cost of productivity.
It also requires the expansion of algae cultivation in saline desert areas.
