(699h) A Compact System for Mass Production of Hydrogen from Biogas

Over the past decades, most of the energy has been produced from processes based on fossil fuels, and anthropogenic greenhouse gases generated as by-product have lead serious environmental problems. To address these issue, the alternative energy system based on the hydrogen so called as “hydrogen economy” has been highlighted. Conventional processes for the mass production of hydrogen are based on the catalytic gasification of biomass owing to maturity of the technology and favorable economic. Recently, the dry reforming of biogas (CH₄+CO₂) is considered as non-fossil fuel based hydrogen production reaction as well as carbon removal process consuming two major greenhouse components, i.e. CO₂ and CH₄. The effluent gas from the dry reforming reaction could be further converted to hydrogen via water gas shift reaction. In this study, a compact system that combines methane reforming and water gas shift reactions was experimentally demonstrated. From the suggested system, bulk hydrogen could be directly produced from biogas. Moreover, it is possible to not only produce high-purity hydrogen from a single system but also recycle captured CO₂ using solid sorbents in the reforming reaction to further improve the efficiency of the process by applying the sorption-enhanced reaction concept.