Hydrogen is an attractive energy source due to its high energy content and friendly combustion. Among the various mechanisms for hydrogen production, dark fermentation is one of the most interesting, because it uses the wastes as feedstock. The research on hydrogen production is to date in study, but the results are not yet conclusive. In this sense, this paper aims to do a critical review between 1993 and 2011 to show the most studied factors, the configurations most employed and the main results on this topic. Our findings showed the need, not only to optimize the factors that influence the production, but also to do more studies on real scale and in continuous flow.