Hydrogen Production in Integrated Catalytic Adsorption (ICA) Steam Gasification System Utilizing Palm Kernel Shell

There is growing interest in hydrogen as an energy earner due to serious
environmental issues and green house gases emission caused by conventional fossil
fuel. Biomass is one of most promising source among renewable resources to produce
abundant. clean and renewable hydrogen. Hydrogen productions from local biomass
i.e. palm oil wastes is an attractive option due to its abundance in the country.
Biomass thermal conversion processes such as biomass steam gasification with in situ
C02 adsorption shows great potential for renewable hydrogen production. Catalyst
addition in the process further enhanced hydrogen yield in the product gas. Present
study proposed hydrogen production in integrated catalytic adsorption (ICA) steam
gasification system utilizing palm kernel shell as the feedstock. Initially. process
design is carried out to generate block diagram and process flow diagram to identify
different process steps i.e. biomass feed handling. steam generation. gasification and
downstream product gas cleaning. The design methodology of fluidized bed gasifier is
then considered based on the hydrodynamic parameter i.e. fluidization velocity to
evaluate diameter and height of the proposed reactor. In addition. design of
experiments (DOE) is performed using Response surface methodology (RSM) m
conjunction with central composite rotatable design (CCRD) based on process
variables range of Expert Design-8 software. The effect of process variables i.e.
temperature. steam to biomass ratio. adsorbent to biomass ratio. fluidization velocity
and biomass particle size on hydrogen production are investigated.