Abstract
This study evaluates the environmental profile of a real biomass-based hydrogen production small-scale (1 MWth) system composed of catalytic candle indirectly heated steam gasifier coupled with zinc oxide (ZnO) guard bed, water gas shift (WGS) and pressure swing absorber (PSA) reactors. Environmental performance from cradle-to-gate was investigated by life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Biomass production shows high influence over all impact categories. In the syngas production process, the main impacts observed are global warming potential (GWP) and acidification potential (AP). Flue gas emission from gasifier burner has the largest proportion of total GWP. The residual off gas use in internal combustion engine (ICE) leads to important environmental savings for all categories. Hydrogen renewability score is computed as 90% due to over 100% decline in non-renewable energy demand. Sensitivity analysis shows that increase in hydrogen production efficiency does not necessarily result in decrease in environmental impacts. In addition, economic allocation of environmental charges increases all impact categories, especially AP and photochemical oxidation (POFP).
Highlights
Growing concerns about climate change, rising costs of fossil fuel, and the geopolitical uncertainty associated with an uninterrupted energy supply have motivated individuals, organizations and nations to look for substitutes that are clean and renewable [1,2]
This study evaluates the environmental characteristics of hydrogen and electricity production in an innovative small-scale biomass gasification plant
The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied to assess the environmental performance of this production scenario
Summary
Growing concerns about climate change, rising costs of fossil fuel, and the geopolitical uncertainty associated with an uninterrupted energy supply have motivated individuals, organizations and nations to look for substitutes that are clean and renewable [1,2]. H2 is only an energy carrier like electricity and not a primary energy source. It can be produced from a wide variety of energy sources, such as natural gas, coal, biomass, solar (thermal and photovoltaic), etc. The environmental performance of hydrogen-production systems highly depends on the type of primary energy and conversion technology used [6]. Among several renewable energy sources, bio-hydrogen is gaining a lot of attraction because of its conversion efficiency with less pollutant generation [7].
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