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Pyrolysis/gasification of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin for hydrogen production in the presence of various nickel-based catalysts

2012; Elsevier BV; Volume: 106; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.fuel.2012.10.064

1873-7153

Chunfei Wu, Zichun Wang, Jun Huang, Paul T. Williams,

Subcritical and Supercritical Water Processes

Cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are the main components of biomass. This work presents research into the pyrolysis/gasification of all three main components of biomass, in order to evaluate and compare their hydrogen production and also understand their gasification processes. A fixed bed, two-stage reaction system has been used employing various nickel-based catalysts. Gas concentration (CO, H2, CO, CO2 and CH4) was analysed for the produced non-condensed gases. Oil byproducts were analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Various techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled to an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS), temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) were applied to characterize the fresh or reacted catalysts. The experimental results show that the lignin sample generates the highest residue fraction (52.0 wt.%) among the three biomass components. When NiZnAl (1:1) catalyst was used in the gasification process, gas yield was increased from 62.4 to 68.2 wt.% for cellulose, and from 25.2 to 50.0 wt.% for the pyrolysis/gasification of lignin. Hydrogen production was increased from 7.0 to 18.7 (m mol g−1 sample) when the NiZnAl (1:1) catalyst was introduced in the pyrolysis/gasification of cellulose. Among the investigated catalysts, NiCaAl (1:1) was found to be the most effective for hydrogen production from cellulose pyrolysis/gasification.