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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Professor Erik Kjeang for teaching this interesting course
and updating the students with the recent developments in this field. I would
also like to thank the Teaching Assistant Yadvinder Singh for his timely
assistance.
























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ABSTRACT

Hydrogen production derived from biomass gasification and reforming is proved to
a competitive method to obtain Hydrogen that can be used as fuel. This project is
an in depth study in this area and the reforming process for obtaining Hydrogen is
simulated using COCO Simulator which is a Chemical process Simulation tool.
The simulator is an open software and can be freely downloaded. It is one of the
basic chemical process tools used by chemical engineering students and
researchers. In the reforming process the actual process conditions are simulated
and the amount of Hydrogen obtained is calculated in Kmol/hour. Since it is a
continuous process and the stream is a flowing stream the amount varies depending
on the reactants and process parameters. The process parameters are varied and the
effects are also investigated. This gives us an estimate of the optimum reaction
conditions at which we can get maximum yield of Hydrogen.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine creating Energy from wastes into a clean fuel that can be stored and used
on convenience. Generating Hydrogen from Biomass is a possibility that has often
times been overlooked. Hydrogen is one of the most plentiful elements. The
problem is most of it is stored in ways that cannot be efficiently tapped. Three
Quarters of earth is Water and Hydrogen is a significant part of it. Even today
Natural gas is one of the main sources of Hydrogen. And new and cost effective
methods are required to bring down the overall cost of Hydrogen. Also today
environmental pollution is a great concern to the world, mainly due to rapid
industrialization and urbanization. So, increasing focus is being placed on clean
energy alternatives for satisfying growing energy demand. Hydrogen has various
other uses which can be broadly divided into the following categories. At present
hydrogen is produced mainly from natural gas, biomass and water. The methods of
hydrogen production from fossil fuels contribute to about half the Hydrogen

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production. But it leads to other concerns. Today global energy requirements are
mostly dependent on fossil fuels as about 80% of the present world energy
demand. This will eventually lead to the foreseeable depletion of limited fossil
energy resources. Presently, the utilization of fossil fuels are causing global climate
change mainly due to the emission of pollutants like carbon, sulphur, ash, droplets
of tars and other organic compounds, which are released into the atmosphere as a
result of their combustion. In order to remedy the depletion of fossil fuels and their
environmental misdeeds hydrogen has been suggested as the energy carrier of the
future. And the best technology at hand to convert this Hydrogen into energy is the
Fuel Cells. The Fuel cells use Hydrogen and Oxygen to produce clean water.

BIOMASS AS A HYDROGEN SOURCE
Biomass is defined as Organic matter that can be used as a fuel. Biomass includes
a wide range of materials, crops such as switch grass, agricultural sources such as
wheat and corn husks, wood bits, yard wastes, construction and demolition waste,
and decomposable plant and animal waste, waste food etc. Biomass is generally
the decomposable stuff that is found in landfill. When Biomass is anaerobically
digested it produces methane. Anaerobic digestion is the digestion of Bio-
decomposable products by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen. Methane so
produced when left into the atmosphere is very harmful as it has been proven that
methane is a more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide as it is more
effective in depleting Ozone. Methane is a rich source of Hydrogen and can be
further processed to extract Hydrogen. Natural gases have plenty of Methane and
thus are an excellent source of Hydrogen. Biomass cant be anaerobically digested
to produce large quantities of methane as it is difficult to build and maintain huge
oxygen proof sealed digesters. Alternatively there are many chemical processes
that can be used to extract Hydrogen from Biomass.


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PROCESSES OF EXTRACTING HYDROGEN FROM BIOMASS.
Biomass extraction from chemical processes is a very much feasible way of
extracting Hydrogen. Since Biomass is much similar to fossil fuel and has the
potential to turn into fossil fuels. The two main processes which are used on fossil
fuels can be used on Biomass as well. The two processes namely Gasification and
Reforming is a commonly used route to extract Hydrogen from Biomass. Lets see
the processes in more detail.
GASIFICATION
Gasification is the process in which the hot air and steam is passed through a
primary reactant at high temperatures. In Biomass Gasification the primary
reactant is Biomass.
Gasification results in the production of Syngas. Syngas can be further reformed to
extract hydrogen. Since syngas contains a lot of methane. Syngas can also be used
as a fuel but then it produces carbon dioxide and other unwanted hydrocarbons.
Since we want a clean fuel like Hydrogen we would go a step further. Today
Gasification of fossil fuels is widely used on industrial scales to generate
electricity.
Biomass can be anything but when it needs to use in a chemical process it needs to
be uniform. A hopper is used to segment and uniform the feed for the reactor. Then
in the reactor it is heated to high temperature in the presence of Oxygen and steam.
Some reactors use air instead of oxygen.
Since biomass doesnt have a unique formula the chemical reaction is as follows.

Biomass + heat + Air + steam H
2
+ CO + CO
2
+ CH
4
+ N
2
+ Other
hydrocarbons

The actual products can vary in composition but Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide,
Carbon dioxide and Methane are consistently produced.

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See the diagram below of a typical Biomass Gasification reactor. In the updraft
reactor the products obtained are taken from the top. In the downdraft reactor the
products are taken from the bottom.


Figure 1 Typical Biomass Gasification reactor

Figure 2 The complete process.

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Since the products vary in volume see the below table that details the range of the
various products.

Table 1 Range of Biomass Gasification products
STEAM REFORMING
Natural gas, which is composed mostly of methane (CH
4
), is processed using a
similar reaction. The methane in the natural gas reacts with water vapor to form
carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases.
Just as it does when reforming methanol, the water vapor splits into hydrogen gas
and oxygen, the oxygen combining with the CO to form CO
2
.
Neither of these reactions are perfect; some methanol or natural gas and carbon
monoxide make it through without reacting. These are burned in the presence of a
catalyst, with a little air to supply oxygen. This converts most of the remaining CO
to CO
2
, and the remaining methanol to CO
2
and water. Various other devices may
be used to clean up any other pollutants, such as sulfur, that may be in the exhaust
stream.
It is important to eliminate the carbon monoxide from the exhaust stream for two
reasons: First, if the CO passes through the fuel cell, the performance and life of

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the fuel cell are reduced; second, it is a regulated pollutant, so cars are only
allowed to produce small amounts of it.
Consider the methanol reforming reaction which is being pursued as a source of
hydrogen to fuel fuel cells, e.g. for mobile electricity generation on boats, for
military hospitals, and electric cars.
CH
3
OH + H
2
O -->3H
2
+CO
2
(1)
This reaction can be modeled as occurring in two stages
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: a nearly irreversible
endothermic cracking reaction in which one mol of liquid methanol is converted
into three mols of products
CH
3
OH -->2H
2
+ CO (2)
followed by the water gas shift reaction,
CO + H
2
O --> H
2
+ CO
2
(3)


Figure 3 Steam Reforming process of the Gases obtained from Biomass
Gasification.

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PROCESS IMPLEMENTATION IN SIMULATOR

SIMULATION RESULTS

ANALYSIS

CONCLUSION
Thus in this project we have seen the implementation of reforming to obtain
Hydrogen. The Simulation results have been varied to obtain different results. The
process is an existing one and of low key in industry due to its low yield and high
cost of operation. Though the process has a low yield of Hydrogen and contains
impurities such as CO which must be removed for optimum fuel cell performance.
We can see that another by-product of this process is methanol which can also be
used in fuel cells particularly high temperature fuel cells such as Solid Oxide Fuel
Cells and Direct Methanol Fuel Cells. The process was simulated and executed as
expected. An attempt has been made to obtain optimum parameter conditions but
wasnt successful. The parameters obtained are very much in use in the industry.
The project can be further developed to successfully test and optimise new process
of Hydrogen development vary the process parameters. Take cost of a process into
operation and get much better results.

REFERENCES
[1] A. DEMIRBAS, HYDROGEN PRODUCTION FROM BIOMASS BY THE GASIFICATION
PROCESS, ENERGY SOURCES 24 (2002) 59.
[2] MENG NI, DENNIS Y.C. LEUNG *, MICHAEL K.H. LEUNG, K. SUMATHY " AN
OVERVIEW OF HYDROGEN PRODUCTION FROM BIOMASS " DEPARTMENT OF
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG, 7/F HAKING WONG
BUILDING, POKFULAM ROAD, HONG KONG, CHINA, 12 NOVEMBER 2005.

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[3] MCKENDRY P. ENERGY PRODUCTION FROM BIOMASS (PART 1): OVERVIEW OF
BIOMASS. BIORESOURCE TECHNOL2002;83:3746.

[4] CHEN G, ANDRIES J, SPLIETHOFF H. CATALYTIC PYROLYSIS OF BIOMASS FOR
HYDROGEN RICH FUEL GAS PRODUCTION.ENERGY CONVERS MANAGE 2003;44:2289
96.

[5 HAMELINCK CN, FAAIJ APC. FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR PRODUCTION OF METHANOL
AND HYDROGEN FROM BIOMASS.J POWER SOURCES 2002;111:122.