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Abstract

Current energy demand and environmental pollution issues are growing due to global urbanization and development in many countries, leading to amplified energy/material consumption, serious and irreparable damage to the ecosystem with simultaneous waste formation. The world energy demand is mainly accomplished by finite fossil fuel-based reserves, which have a crucial impact on the ecosystem/environment, and consequently, there is a need for a sustainable and/or low-carbon bioeconomy. Hydrogen (H2) generation from renewable biomass/waste is a promising bioenergy system that can generate low-carbon hydrogen and reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions by 2050. Waste-to-biohydrogen (WtBH) can become a portion of the zero-emissions fuel replacement for natural gas and serve as one of the sustainable cleaner hydrogen sources which are environmentally friendly and economically feasible. In this view, bio-H2 is considered appropriate because of its high potential as a green, clean, and sustainable carbon-neutral energy source in the emerging low-carbon hydrogen bioeconomy. Nanostructured systems based on renewable biomass/waste sources depict a high potential to produce sustainable and low carbon biohydrogen economy because of their excellent physicochemical structures, such as high efficiency, high surface/volume ratio, non/low-toxicity, high chemical/mechanical stability, biodegradability/biocompatibility, availability, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and unusual electrical/mechanical and magnetic properties. Renewable biomass and waste materials are extensively considered green sources to prepare greener and more sustainable sorts of mono- or bi-metallic nanomaterials using facile approaches. This review summarizes the deployment of thermochemical and biochemical approaches for WtBH using nanobiocatalysts towards a low-carbon bioeconomy.Graphical Abstract