Kinetic Modelling of In situ Catalytic Adsorptive Gasification Unit Utilizing Palm Kernel Shell (PKS) for Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen production from the biomass has become more popular nowadays. This is because of its advantages of lower in sulphur and nitrogen content which would prevent the formation of SOx and NOx emission that is harmful to the environment. Because of its greener and environmentally friendly fuel, the demand for the study of the Hydrogen production from this biomass has increased in the last few years. There are a few methods identified to extract the hydrogen out from the biomass. One of them is through steam gasification process. There were many studies done through experimental analysis as to determine the amount of hydrogen production from the biomass. This has incurred with cost to build the model, time spent for the analysis and the safety of the personal who involved in the experiment and many others. Due to these reasons, the requirement of developing the kinetic model for estimating the hydrogen production from the biomass has escalate for the last few years. Despite its lower cost and lesser time spend, the safety of the personal is also protected.
Therefore, in this study, understanding of the key critical parameters that influence the gasification process which could affect the hydrogen and other gases production have been identified through literatures studies and the experimental data that have been done by the post graduate students in the laboratory of University Technology of Petronas (UTP). Through these data, kinetic models for the Palm Kernel Shell (PKS) have been developed base on estimation values that have been validated using Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization (HPSO) and Levenberg-Marquat (LM) method.