12-15 July 2011
Saint George Hotel
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

Enhancement of hydrogen production using biomass gasification process

14 Jul 2011, 17:00
2h
Asteria

Asteria

Poster Presentation Track F - Applied and Industrial Physics Poster2

Speaker

Dr Sampson Mamphweli (University of Fort Hare, Institute of Technology)

Description

Hydrogen production from biomass holds the greatest promise, since biomass is abundantly available everywhere in the world. However, hydrogen from biomass has major challenges. The yield of hydrogen is low from biomass since the hydrogen content in biomass is low to begin with (approximately 6%) and the energy content is low due to the 40% oxygen content of biomass. A novel gasification method for hydrogen production from carbonaceous materials using a CO2 sorbent has been widely used. It mainly uses steam as gasification agent. For this study the above method has been adopted to test if it will work for air-blown biomass gasifiers. The main purpose of this project is to enhance the yield of hydrogen from air-blown biomass gasification process. The produced hydrogen will be further separated and purified for fuel cell application. Ultimate and proximate analyses of the biomass material were conducted and the obtained results were used for the simulations in order to determine the efficiency of the gasifier with biomass and biomass/sorbent blends. It was found that the biomass/sorbent blends increase the yield of not only H2 but also other syngas constituents such as CO leading to enhancement of the gasifier efficiency since it is dependent on the volume of combustible gases.

Consider for a student <br> &nbsp; award (Yes / No)? Yes
Level (Hons, MSc, <br> &nbsp; PhD, other)? PhD
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)? Yes

Primary author

Ms Azwihangwisi Iren Mabuda (University of Fort Hare)

Co-authors

Prof. Edson Meyer (University of Fort Hare, Institute of Technology) Dr Sampson Mamphweli (University of Fort Hare, Institute of Technology)

Presentation Materials