Iranian hydrogen production insight: research trends and outlook

Hydrogen is the best potential candidate to deliver economically reasonable, socially beneficial, and energetically efficient answers to problems associated with the ever-increasing world energy demand and climate change. In this study, different renewable and non-renewable hydrogen production sources and systems are presented comparatively and then partially discussed. Thermal, photonic, biochemical, and electrical are the selected energy sources for hydrogen production. Moreover, the trend of publishing journal articles and registering patents in the field of hydrogen production in Iran and the rest of the world has been presented and compared. The patent registration trend has been markedly upward in recent years. Iranian articles in the field of hydrogen production are categorized based on hydrogen production technology. Due to the vast and affordable sources of fossil fuels, hydrogen production from reforming technology has attracted the most attention. Biomass gasification is another common method of hydrogen production using renewable energy sources.