Due to concerns over fossil fuels and climate change, a focus has been placed on developing methods of generating fuels with less CO2 footprint. Hydrogen is the cleanest fuel available and has the ability to be used in high efficiency PEM fuel cells. Thermochemical conversion of biomass provides a potentially carbon neutral approach to generate H2. The alkaline thermal treatment of biomass is one of the less studied pathways that innovatively producing high purity H2 with suppressed COx formation under moderate reaction conditions (i.e., 573 K and ambient pressure). Essentially, biomass is reacted with an alkali metal hydroxide, such as NaOH, in such a molar proportion that all of the carbon and oxygen embodied in the reactants is fixed as an alkali metal carbonate, while all of the elemental hydrogen is released as pure H2 gas. Thus, fuel cell ready H2 can be produced from biomass in a single reactor. This technology has great potential for sustainable bioenergy production since it can handle a wide range of feedstocks including biomass and biogenic wastes with high water content. In this study, the effects of parameters such as feedstock type (i.e., glucose and cellulose), different hydroxides, reaction temperature, heating rate, hydroxide:Biomass ratio, method of reactant mixing, flow of steam, and concentration of steam flow on the gaseous and solid products formed were investigated while evaluating the role of Ni/ZiO2 catalyst. Group I and II hydroxides (i.e., NaOH, Ca(OH)2 and Mg(OH)2) have shown different reaction intermediates and hydrogen production behaviors indicating the distinctive reaction pathways.

Biomass conversion to high-purity hydrogen with integrated carbon fixation in the presence of group I & II hydroxides and a Ni/ZrO2 catalyst

249th National Meeting (2015)

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