Abstract
The thermo-catalytic and biochemical conversion of biomass to hydrogen-rich syngas has been widely reported with less emphasis on the environmental implications of the processes. This mini-review presents an overview of different thermo-catalytic route of converting biomass to hydrogen-rich syngas as well as their environmental impact investigated using life cycle assessment methodology. The review revealed that most of the authors employed, biomass gasification, biomass pyrolysis, reforming and fermentative processes for the hydrogen-rich syngas production. Global warming potential was observed as the most significant environmental impact reported in the reviewed articles. The CO2 equivalent emissions were found to varies with each of the processes and the type of feedstock used. Trends from literature show that both thermo-catalytic and biochemical processes have competitive advantages and potential to compete favorable with the existing technology used for hydrogen production. Nevertheless, it cannot be ascertained that these technologies should be excluded from environmental burdens. This mini-review could be a quick guide to future research interest in environmental impact of hydrogen-rich syngas production by thermo-catalytic and biochemical conversion of biomass.
Highlights
Most of the energy demand globally is sourced from fossil sources such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum (Bölük and Mert, 2014)
There are extensive review papers on hydrogen production by methane decomposition (Abbas and Wan Daud, 2010), agricultural waste by dark fermentation (Guo et al, 2010; Ghimire et al, 2015), chemical and photochemical conversion of hydrogen sulfide (Reverberi et al, 2016), thermochemical conversion of biomass (Arregi et al, 2018; Salam et al, 2018), by chemical looping technology (Luo et al, 2018). None of these reviews addressed the environmental implications of producing hydrogen-rich syngas by thermo-catalytic and biochemical conversion of biomass which is the focus of this mini-review
The analysis of the reviewed papers based on LCA have ascertained that energy production from renewable source such as biomass is not totally free from environmental impacts
Summary
Most of the energy demand globally is sourced from fossil sources such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum (Bölük and Mert, 2014). Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production From Biomass more valuable end products in the form of gas, liquid, and solids through different technological routes (Landis et al, 2018) It is renewable, sustainable, its utilization has less negative environmental impact compared to energy from fossil sources (Baykara, 2018). There are extensive review papers on hydrogen production by methane decomposition (Abbas and Wan Daud, 2010), agricultural waste by dark fermentation (Guo et al, 2010; Ghimire et al, 2015), chemical and photochemical conversion of hydrogen sulfide (Reverberi et al, 2016), thermochemical conversion of biomass (Arregi et al, 2018; Salam et al, 2018), by chemical looping technology (Luo et al, 2018) None of these reviews addressed the environmental implications of producing hydrogen-rich syngas by thermo-catalytic and biochemical conversion of biomass which is the focus of this mini-review. Pyrolysis which has hydrocarbons in the forms of biooil as one the major products, the main gaseous products of gasification, reforming and fermentative processes are H2, CO, CO2, CH4, and C2H4
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