Waste Biomass to Renewable Hydrogen
Waste Biomass to Renewable Hydrogen
This research project seeks to develop a biomass reforming system capable of extracting hydrogen and/or hydrogen-carriers – such as bio-alcohols and bio-acids – from biomass.
| Lead participants:
University of New South Wales (UNSW) |
Classification:
Research and development
|
Status:
In progress |
Estimated cost:
AUD$2.54 million |
| Research partners:
Beijing Origin Water Technology Co. Ltd (China), Apricus Energy |
Main supply chain category:
Hydrogen production |
Location:
New South Wales, Australia |
Announced funding:
AUD$1.04 million – Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) |
Research description
This research project seeks 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 would comprise a biomass pre-conditioning reactor coupled with a flow electrolyser cell to produce renewable hydrogen without any carbon dioxide emissions.
Biomass would be fed into the biomass pre-conditioning reactor where it would be transformed into bio-alcohol/bio-acid hydrogen-carrying compounds. The biomass pre-conditioning reactor product stream would then be passed into the flow electrolyser cell where the hydrogen would be extracted and recovered.
Energy requirements for the biomass pre-conditioning reactor (heat) and the flow electrolyser cell (electricity) would be provided using a solar concentrator (SC) tube array and a photovoltaic (PV) cell, respectively. The reforming system would be used to treat biomass provided by Beijing Origin Water Technology.
More details on the research, including contact information, can be found at the ARENA webpage for this project.
This research project was part of a suite of projects for which ARENA announced AUD$22.1 million of funding in September 2018.
This description was reviewed by the lead research participant in August 2020.