Insights into renewable hydrogen energy: Recent advances and prospects

Presently the fulfilment of world’s energy demand highly relies on the fossil fuel i.e. coal, oil and natural gas. Fossil fuels pose threat to environment and biological systems on the earth. Usage of these fuels leads to an increase in the CO2 content in the atmosphere that causes global warming and undesirable climatic changes. Additionally, these are limited sources of energy those will eventually dwindle. There is huge urge of identifying and utilizing the renewable energy resources to replace these fossil fuels in the near future as it is expected to have no impact on environment and thus would enable one to provide energy security. Hydrogen is one of the most desirable fuel capable of replacing vanishing hydrocarbons. In this review we present the status of energy demands, recent advances in renewable energy and the prospects of hydrogen as a future fuel are highlighted. It gives a broad overview of different energy systems and mainly focuses on different technologies and their reliability for the production of hydrogen in present and future.