An innovative technology to produce hydrogen from biomass has been developed by a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science angalore in India. The team was led by IISc Centre for Sustainable Technologies Professor S Dasappa. The process consists of two steps. In the first step, biomass is converted into syngas, a hydrogen-rich fuel gas mixture, in a novel reactor using oxygen and steam. In the second step, pure hydrogen is generated from syngas using an indigenously developed low-pressure gas separation unit.Both these technologies, developed in Dasappa’s lab, ensure that this process is a highly efficient method of generating green hydrogen – it produces 100 g of hydrogen from 1 kg of biomass even though only 60 g of hydrogen are present in 1 kg of biomass. This is because in this process, steam, which also contains hydrogen, participates in both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions (in homogeneous reactions, reactants are in a single phase whereas in heterogeneous reactions, the reactants are in two or more phases).The production of green hydrogen using this process is environmentally friendly for another reason, it is carbon negative. The two carbon-based by-products are solid carbon, which serves as a carbon sink, and carbon dioxide, which can be used in other value-added products.The project was supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India. The team also acknowledges the support of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in scaling up the technology to produce 0.25 tonnes of hydrogen per day for use in hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses.
An innovative technology to produce hydrogen from biomass has been developed by a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science angalore in India. The team was led by IISc Centre for Sustainable Technologies Professor S Dasappa. The process consists of two steps. In the first step, biomass is converted into syngas, a hydrogen-rich fuel gas mixture, in a novel reactor using oxygen and steam. In the second step, pure hydrogen is generated from syngas using an indigenously developed low-pressure gas separation unit.Both these technologies, developed in Dasappa’s lab, ensure that this process is a highly efficient method of generating green hydrogen – it produces 100 g of hydrogen from 1 kg of biomass even though only 60 g of hydrogen are present in 1 kg of biomass. This is because in this process, steam, which also contains hydrogen, participates in both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions (in homogeneous reactions, reactants are in a single phase whereas in heterogeneous reactions, the reactants are in two or more phases).The production of green hydrogen using this process is environmentally friendly for another reason, it is carbon negative. The two carbon-based by-products are solid carbon, which serves as a carbon sink, and carbon dioxide, which can be used in other value-added products.The project was supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India. The team also acknowledges the support of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in scaling up the technology to produce 0.25 tonnes of hydrogen per day for use in hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses.
