Waste Biomass to Renewable Hydrogen

closed

Extracting hydrogen from biomass represents a valuable approach by which a waste organic stream can be converted into hydrogen (or hydrogen-carriers) for downstream use or as an exportable commodity.The Waste Biomass to Renewable Hydrogen project aims to develop a biomass reforming system capable of extracting hydrogen and/or hydrogen-carriers – such as bio-alcohols and bio-acids – from biomass. The biomass reforming system will comprise a biomass pre-conditioning reactor (BPR) coupled with a flow electrolyser cell (FEC) to produce renewable hydrogen without any carbon dioxide emissions.Key resultsThis project successfully built and commissioned a micro-tubular reactor for catalyst screening and reactor performance tests. The miniaturised methanol production as hydrogen carrier from biomass pyrolysis syngas is technically feasible and economically viable under the current demand-supply-cost combination but vulnerable to external and market conditions. A comprehensive handbook was developed which documents the fundamental knowledge of methanol catalystic synthesis, and a design toolkit for the development, design, construction and operation of the minituarised methanol synthesis plant.

High