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Clean Techn Environ Policy (2010) 12:171175

DOI 10.1007/s10098-009-0241-4

ORIGINAL PAPER

Using biomass as an energy source with low CO2 emissions


Rodrigo Rivera-Tinoco Chakib Bouallou

Received: 2 June 2009 / Accepted: 7 June 2009 / Published online: 7 July 2009
Springer-Verlag 2009

Abstract This work deals with the carbon dioxide cycle


and emissions from biomass incineration under a hydrogen
production context. It is proposed to use the thermal energy
obtained by biomass combustion to produce water steam,
which afterwards would be converted into hydrogen by
high temperature electrolysis (HTE). In France, the thermal
energy potential from nonvalorised biomass reaches almost
6.5 Mtep. In this study, the potential avoided carbon
emissions are quantified as well as the feasible hydrogen
production capacity based on the steam supplied by the
incineration units. Results show that carbon consumption
in hydrogen production by steam methane reforming
(SMR) or biomass incinerationHTE process is almost
equivalent between both processes. However, the hydrogen
produced by the biomass incinerationHTE process used to
fuel vehicles, would lead to a decrease of 135 Mt of carbon
from fossil origins yearly, in contrast to SMR.
Keywords Biomass  Hydrogen production  Carbon 
Incineration

Introduction
To fight against the global warming due to greenhouse
gases emissions, the usage of fossil energy sources that
present high CO2 emissions should be diminished, at least
as stated in Kyoto Protocol. The European Union discusses
about the energy security and policies, concerning the
energy demand and the energy supply of renewable energy
R. Rivera-Tinoco  C. Bouallou (&)
Mines ParisTech, Centre Energetique et Procedes,
60 Bd. Saint Michel, 75006 Paris, France
e-mail: chakib.bouallou@ensmp.fr

sources. This includes the development of biofuels and


biomass action plans (EC 1997, 2000, 2005). With this
aim, the biomass use as an energy source is studied in this
work under a hydrogen production context. The current
estimations of CO2 natural cycle and the influences of the
consumption of fossil energy sources show that around
75% of carbon dioxide emissions are caused by the fossil
fuels (Janzen 2004). The natural cycle of this gas is not
able to store 38% of the emissions, which lead to an
accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Therefore, the use
of clean energy sources in industrial processes must be
encouraged in order to mitigate the consequences of the
increase in dioxide concentration.
Based on the high ratio between energy production and
energy consumption of biomass incineration, which is
around 10, and the low CO2 emissions of this energy
source, the use of biomass as a fuel is proposed in a
hydrogen production process. Biomass combustion is proposed to first produce water steam, while a low CO2 energy
source is considered to supply the electricity needed in the
high temperature electrolysis (HTE) process to secondly
produce hydrogen.
Moreover, the data about the storage of CO2 by different
crops and forests (Pejam et al. 2006; Verma et al. 2005)
was used to carry out the evaluation of the decrease of
carbon dioxide emissions when biomass is used to produce
hydrogen, replacing the reforming of methane.

CO2 cycle and dynamics


Nowadays, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is about 370 ppm (Janzen 2004), which is equivalent to 785 9 109 t of carbon. This amount increases year
after year dramatically since the economy and activities of

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172

our society are based on fossil fuels and the devastation of


ecosystems. Since the 90s, 8.2 9 109 t of carbon were
injected into the atmosphere yearly: 6.2 9 109 t from fossil
fuels and 2.0 9 109 coming from agriculture surfaces. Of
these tonnes of carbon, 5.0 9 109 were stocked by the
ecosystems and 3.2 9 109 remained in the atmosphere,
representing an annual increase in carbon dioxide concentration of 1.5 ppmv. Figure 1 illustrates the current
carbon cycle. Moreover, the continuous enlargement of
agricultural surface, which covers around 30% of the
worlds surface, frees the carbon stored as wood. In order
to reduce the carbon emissions, the European Union (EU)
target is to pass from 5.3% of renewable energies consumption to 12% in 2012 (MAPa 2006).
One of the strategies against carbon emissions is the
utilization of biomass in different fields. However, since
biomass is a limited resource, it is important to determine
the most beneficial way of using it (Lindfeldt and Westermark 2008). Technologies analysed for using the biomass include the production of electricity, heat, and
transport fuels, and also as construction materials and other
products (Gustavsson et al. 2007). The usage of alcohol
produced from biomass is widely studied and it could be a
solution for transportation fuel (Tolan 2002). The production
of biodegradable polymers as the PHB (poly-3-hydroxybutyrate) and PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) is envisaged
from biomass contained in sludge (Mudliar et al. 2008).
Other applications of biomass, and sometimes mixed
with plastics, is the production of light alkanes and other
organic compounds by pyrolysis (Klemes and Bulatov
2008; Paradela et al. 2008), which enhances the recovery of
liquid and gases from solid wastes. Moreover, the biomass
incineration is also envisaged as an energy source for heat
generation and/or combined generation of heat and power

R. Rivera-Tinoco, C. Bouallou

(Wahlund et al. 2004). The incineration technology is


getting much more importance and several industrial
applications are currently available (Urban et al. 2007).
Advances on biomass combustion modelling in industrial
furnaces and acquiring accurate thermophysical data of
biomass as fuel enhance the efficient energy recovery by
incineration of this source. Hence, the proposal of water
steam production by biomass incineration is studied
including its impact on the carbon cycle.
According to the French Ministry of Agriculture and
Fishing, almost 90% of the total surface is still rural field or
slightly built, which means large forests and fields. Among
the EU members, France has the third largest agricultural
surfaces and woods, after Finland and Sweden. The
inventory of the countrys surface in France is presented in
Fig. 2. The cereals, oleaginous, protaginous plants and
other industrial crops (wheat, maize, colza and sunflower),
which occupy 40% of the agricultural surface, could supply
a significant quantity of straw in addition to their main
product. Twenty-eight percent of the agricultural surface
belongs to the permanent culture of which the vine is the
most important.
Information about the dynamics of carbon cycle in
France is not bulky. Therefore, we also considered similar
ecosystems in order to quantify the rate of carbon
absorption in the country. For plants crops and woods, the
storage of carbon dioxide depends on temperature, season,
photosynthesis capacity, leaves surface, moisture and time
of growing of the plants. Three terms describe the carbon
storage process in ecosystems: the global ecosystem productivity (GEP), respiration (R) and the net ecosystem
productivity (NEP). Pejam et als. (2006) work dealt with
the carbon storage by boreal woods and we assumed that
this boreal forest of Canada could be representative as the
woods of pine trees in France. The storage of carbon by the
woods is slower than in other crops. Around 150 carbon
grams per square metre could be stored yearly.
Verma et al. 2005 carried out the study of carbon storage
in maize, soybean, wheat and oats fields and Moureaux
et al. 2006 studied wheat and sugar beet fields. An annual
Surface without usage
Built surface

Agricultural surface
Woods surface

Fig. 1 Current carbon cycle (Janzen 2004)

123

Fig. 2 Surface distribution by usage in France (MAP 2005)

Biomass as an energy source with low CO2 emissions

173

average storage around 500 carbon grams per square metre


could be noticed. The average amount per hectare could be
seen as the capture of carbon dioxide emitted by three
small cars per year. Results from Verma et als. (2005)
work show that the NEP of a specific crop additionally
depends on irrigation system, age of the crop and the time
for which the surface has been used for one crop. The
decrease on NEP along the time indicates that carbon is
accumulated in the soil. Consequently, in order to avoid
this accumulation, the rotation of crops should be carried
out if a higher NEP is necessary.

Biomass availability and hydrogen production potential


In 2003, the biomass used to produce energy reached
12.25 Mtep (Mt oil equivalent), 76% of them were
obtained from wood and wood waste, 18.6% from urban
garbage, 2.8% from biocarburants and 2.6% from biogas.
Almost 95% of the total energy produced from biomass
was thermal energy. The last 5% was used for electricity
production (Verma et al. 2005). The total amount of
wood biomass energy that could be valorised in France
reaches 40 Mtep (MAPb 2006), from which 25% is
currently used. However, in order to protect the woods
and ecosystems, the annual woodbiomass production is
controlled and carried out only up to 79% of the total
capacity, which means that 4.9 Mtep could be obtained
by harvesting the totality of the planned production
without disturbing the ecosystems (Ballerini and Alazard
Toux 2006). Additionally, the biomass available from
agricultural cultures (straw) reaches a weight of 5 Mt
that represents 1.5 Mtep.
The proposal of this work is the biomass incineration
that permits the production of steam which would be then
electrolyzed by HTE. This process seems a competitive and
feasible way to produce hydrogen with much more efficiency than alkaline electrolysis and with lower emissions
on CO2 than methane reforming (Utgikar and Thiesen
2006). The biomass potential for water steam production is
linked to the heating value of the biomass, which at same
time depends on chemical composition. Cordero et al. 2001
measured the high heating values (HHV in kWh/t) for
several plants and straws and proposed Eq. 1 to calculate
them based on the carbon fixed by the plant (FC) and
volatile matter (VM), both expressed in mass fraction.

100  Hb
LHV HHV
100

0MH
 Xv @

2O

MH2


1
H Hb
A:
100

MH2 O and MH2 are the molecular weights of water and


hydrogen, H is the mass hydrogen content (%), Hb the
moisture content (%) and Xv is the latent evaporation heat
of water. In order to evaluate a wide range of biomass
sources, two different kinds of plants were chosen because
of the differences between composition and nature: pine
tree wood and wheat straw.
The LHV values were obtained by Eq. 3 and are used to
calculate the biomass needed in an incineration unit (mbiom)
for a desired hydrogen production mass flow fixed (mH2 )
between 180 and 3,600 kg/h. The total conversion of water
steam into hydrogen by the electrolysis process was
assumed. Ht is the enthalpy of the steam produced and g
the heat transfer efficiency in the incineration unit (80%).
Results for LHV and biomass needed in the incinerator are
presented in Tables 1 and 2.


mH2  Ht MH2 O
mbiom
3
LHVbiom  g MH2

Based on these results, it is noticed that the size of the


incineration units is almost as important as the domestic
waste incineration units used nowadays in several EU
countries, which are well known systems with mature
technology. However, biomass incineration must be carried
out with caution because of the high content of salts that
could damage the heat exchangers inside the incineration
unit (Flemming 2005).
The study of carbon consumed for a fixed hydrogen
production by both kinds of biomass was carried out. The
average carbon content of wheat straw is 45.5% and pine
tree wood 51.9%. Assuming that the incineration unit
availability is 80%, we calculated the carbon consumed at
the lowest and highest moisture content by multiplying the
annual biomass consumption and its carbon content. For
both, this consumption is between 0.034 and 0.064 Mt of
carbon per year. More specific values depending on the
steam temperature are presented in Fig. 3. Besides, the
carbon consumption needed to produce hydrogen by steam
methane reforming (SMR) is also presented in the mentioned figure. The energy consumption of the SMR process
was neglected and the estimation was carried out assuming
the total conversion of methane under the following global
reaction:

Then, in order to estimate the influence of moisture on


biomass needed to produce a fixed production of hydrogen,
we calculated the low heating value (LHV) with Eq. 2
(Deglise and Donnot 2004).

CH4 2H2 O ! 4H2 CO2


4
Based on previous data about the dynamics of carbon
storage and assuming a hydrogen production of 3,600 kg/h,
the total surface needed to store the carbon emitted by the

HHV 98:42 FC 47:44 VM:

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174

R. Rivera-Tinoco, C. Bouallou

Table 1 Pine tree wood needed in the incineration for hydrogen production
Biomass pine tree
Moisture (%)

10

20

Biomass needed in the incineration unit (t/h)


Hydrogen
production (kg/h)

Biomass
PCI (kWh/t)

3,600

4,676.8

40

623

673

723

773

823

9.56

9.92

10.27

10.62

10.96

1,800

4.78

4.96

5.13

5.30

5.48

360
180

0.96
0.48

0.99
0.49

1.03
0.51

1.06
0.53

1.09
0.55

3,600

11.03

11.43

11.84

12.24

12.64

1,800

4,056.4

5.51

5.72

5.92

6.12

6.32

360

1.10

1.14

1.18

1.22

1.26

180
30

Steam temperature (K)

0.55

0.57

0.59

0.61

0.63

13.02

13.50

13.98

14.45

14.92

1,800

6.51

6.75

6.99

7.23

7.46

360

1.30

1.35

1.39

1.45

1.49

180

0.65

0.67

0.69

0.72

0.75

15.88

16.47

17.06

17.64

18.21

1,800

7.94

8.24

8.53

8.82

9.10

360

1.59

1.65

1.71

1.76

1.82

180

0.79

0.82

0.85

0.88

0.91

3,600

3,600

3,436.0

2,815.6

Table 2 Straw needed in the incineration for hydrogen production


Biomass wheat straw

Biomass needed in the incineration unit (t/h)


Steam temperature (K)

Moisture (%)

Hydrogen
production (kg/h)

Biomass
PCI (kWh/t)

623

673

723

773

823

10

3,600

4,177.5

20

10.71

11.10

11.49

11.89

12.27

1,800

5.35

5.55

5.75

5.94

6.13

360

1.07

1.11

1.15

1.19

1.23

180

0.53

0.55

0.57

0.59

0.61

12.37

12.83

13.29

13.74

14.18

6.18
1.23

6.42
1.28

6.64
1.33

6.87
1.37

7.09
1.42

3,600

3,614.3

1,800
360
180
30

40

0.62

0.64

0.66

0.69

0.71

14.66

15.20

15.74

16.27

16.80

1,800

7.33

7.60

7.87

8.13

8.40

360

1.46

1.52

1.57

1.63

1.68

180

0.73

0.76

0.79

0.81

0.84

17.98

18.64

19.30

19.96

20.61

1,800

8.99

9.32

9.65

9.98

10.30

360

1.80

1.86

1.93

1.99

2.06

180

0.90

0.93

0.97

0.99

1.03

3,600

3,600

3,051.1

2,488.0

incineration unit would be between 19,000 and 43,000 ha


of woods, or between 5,800 and 13,000 ha for agricultural
surfaces. In the work of Werkoff et al. (2005), the average
consumption of hydrogen per vehicle is presented and we
estimated that a unit producing 3,600 kg/h of hydrogen

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could feed yearly 233,000 vehicles. This could avoid carbon emissions of 0.14 Mt/year for small vehicles emitting
150 g of CO2 per km and running 15,000 km/year. Without
damaging ecosystems, the total thermal energy potential of
nonvalorized biomass in France reaches 6.5 Mtep and it

Biomass as an energy source with low CO2 emissions

Fig. 3 Carbon consumed for a hydrogen production of 3,600 kg/h

could allow the production of enough hydrogen to fuel


60 million vehicles, twice the vehicle fleet, which at the
same time would avoid 135 Mt of CO2/year.

Conclusion
The proposal of steam production by valorizing the available biomass in France presents a high potential for thermal
energy production up to 6.5 Mtep that could lead to a
hydrogen production enable to feed twice the French
vehicle fleet. The carbon emissions of producing hydrogen
by SMR or biomass incinerationHTE processes are almost
equivalent at a value between 0.3 and 0.4 Mt of carbon per
year. However, under a hydrogen vehicle fleet assumption,
the use of biomass for hydrogen production would avoid
the emissions of 135 Mt of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels
used by cars. A larger Life Cycle Assessment study
including the electricity production should be carried out
in order to improve the accuracy of estimations on the
reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by producing
hydrogen by the biomass incineration and the HTE process.

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